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Shells, difference in form of, in male and female Gasteropoda; beautiful colours and shapes of. Shield-drake, pairing with a common duck; New Zealand, sexes and young of. Shooter, J., on the Kaffirs; on the marriage-customs of the Kaffirs. Shrew-mice, odour of. Shrike, Drongo. Shrikes, characters of young. Shuckard, W.E., on sexual differences in the wings of Hymenoptera.
A spangled drongo ardent lover of light and free air talkatively announced the dawn long before its coming; the noisy pitta bird of the moist soil and leafy gloom triumphs in three notes. For an hour the scrub fowl have been violently noisy, but have retired to the recesses of the jungle, whence comes an occasional chuckle of satisfaction or a coarse, triumphant crow.
Though denied fluency of utterance, the spangled drongo has no rival in the peculiar character of the notes and calls over which he has secure copyright.
Several species of drongo or king-crow occur on the Nilgiris, but not one of them is sufficiently abundant to be numbered among the common birds of the hill stations. Of the warblers it may be said "their name is legion." So many species exist, and the various species are so difficult to differentiate, that the family drives most field ornithologists to the verge of despair.
The bee-eater has the two central feathers prolonged and pointed. The drongos, which are flycatchers in habit, wear their tails very long and deeply forked; and one of them, the racket-tailed drongo, has the two side feathers extended beyond the rest for nearly a foot, and as thin as wires, expanding into a blade at the ends. I have seen nothing in ladies' hats more preposterous.
A professor of physiology asserts that rabbits are very curious when under the influence of liquor, and that a drunken kangaroo is brutally aggressive. The drongo is merely pugnacious and noisy.
The drongo shrike is another permanent resident; glossy black, with a metallic shimmer on the shoulders, long-tailed, sharp of bill and masterful. He has a scolding tongue, and if a hawk hovers over the bloodwoods he tells without hesitation of the evil presence.
Having heard of the melancholy effects of over-indulgence in melaleuca nectar, I was not at all disposed to judge of the misbehaviour harshly or to take personal offence; for the drongo is a respectable bird, and the opportunities for excess come but twice a year. Are not the tenses of intoxication infinite?
On the lower ranges, and especially at Almora, it is nearly as common as in the plains. At most hill stations both species occur. The note of the ashy drongo differs considerably from that of the king-crow: otherwise the habits of the two species are very similar. Take thirty-three per cent. off the pugnacity of the king-crow and you will arrive at a fair estimate of that of the ashy drongo.
The saucy bullies, the half-tipsy roysterers, tired of domineering over every participator of the feast, dared to publicly flout me, defiantly sweeping with their tails the air, as an Irishman, "blue mouldy for want of a bateing," sweeps the floor with his coat, and chattered and scolded in every tone of elated bravado. The bibacious drongo can be as demure as any.
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