Page:The Common Birds of Bombay.djvu/94

78 coast. For these reasons it is little known as a Bombay bird.

From a Mahomedan tradition we learn that the Paradise Flycatcher belongs to that unhappy class who are spoken of as having "seen better days."

At one time it was a truly glorious bird, clad from tip to toe in dazzling white and adorned with a magnificent tail of snowy plumes. But it gave way to pride and got so puffed up at length that it presumed to compare itself with the Birds of Paradise and claimed a place among them. For this it was shorn of its tail and utterly disgraced. It repented, however, and Allah was merciful and allowed it to retain two of the feathers of its tail, but he blackened its face that it might never forget its shame.

Our second fancy Flycatcher is the Fantail, Jerdon's Leucocerca pectoralis. This is quite another style. It is a little bird of a squat figure and smoky brown colour, with white eyebrows and a merry face, but no particular points except the length and breadth of its tail. But there is not a jollier spirit among creatures clothed in feathers. With wings dropped after the manner of a turkey-cock, and tail not obtrusively stuck up but held gracefully and spread like a halfopen fan, it waltzes and pirouettes among the lower branches of a shady mango tree,

that I always feel prompted to stop and ask it, "Prythee, why so gay?" Every few second it executes a wonderful flourish in the air to capture a fly, or lets off its tinkling little song. In March or April it chooses a fork of some under-branch of a shady tree, and toils merrily with its mate to fit in a