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The red-eye is classed among the flycatchers by some writers, but is much more of a worm-eater, and has few of the traits or habits of the Muscicapa or the true Sylvia. He resembles somewhat the warbling vireo, and the two birds are often confounded by careless observers. Both warble in the same cheerful strain, but the latter more continuously and rapidly.
The chaffinches, too the greatest bird multitude there is, perhaps, after the house-sparrows are free enough to sing. They have been, during the past week, sailing out on short voyages from the tops of trees, like flycatchers, dancing in the air after their victims and then returning to the spray.
Among the latter the most prominent are the grey-necked crow, the koel, the myna, the king-crow and the magpie-robin. In the spring paradise flycatchers are very abundant. From Almora the road to the snowy range runs over an almost treeless rocky mountain called Kalimat, which rises to a height of 6500 feet. From Kalimat the road descends to Takula 16 miles from Almora.
Peter almost wondered if in some way Dear Me's tongue and tail were connected. "I suppose," said he, "that it is the habit of catching flies and bugs in the air that has given your family the name of Flycatchers." Dear Me nodded and almost at once started into the air again. Once more Peter heard the click of that little black bill, then Dear Me was back on his perch.
There were several pretty finches, warblers, and flycatchers, and among them I obtained the elegant blue and red Cyornis hyacinthina; but I cannot recognise among my collections the species mentioned by Dampier, who seems to have been much struck by the number of small songbirds in Timor.
It is a black bird with a white abdomen, some white in the wings and tail, a few white spots on the chin, and the white eyebrow mentioned above. The most beautiful of all the flycatchers is Terpsiphone paradisi the paradise-flycatcher, or ribbon-bird, as it is often called. This is fairly abundant on the Nilgiris. The cock in the full glory of his adult plumage is a truly magnificent object.
Never before this summer have the king-birds, handsomest of flycatchers, built in my orchard; though I always know where to find them within half a mile. I hope she was prospecting with a view to settlement in our garden. She seemed, on the whole, to think well of my fruit, and I would gladly plant another bed if it would help to win over so delightful a neighbor.
A yellow-bellied trogon came quite close, and sat as trogons do, very straight and stiff like a poorly mounted bird, watching passing flycatchers and me and the glimpses of sky. At first he rolled his little cuckoo-like notes, and his brown mate swooped up, saw me, shifted a few feet farther off and perched full of curiosity, craning her neck and looking first with one eye, then the other.
All this while there had been other birds in view besides the bluejay chick-a-dees and nut-hatches hunting their tiny prey among the dark branches of the fir-trees, Canada sparrows fluting their clear call from the tree tops, flycatchers darting and tumbling in their zig-zag, erratic flights, and sometimes a big golden-wing woodpecker running up and down a tall, dead trunk which stood close by, and rat-tat-tat-tatting in a most businesslike and determined manner.
The ground was soft enough to let the earthworms come up to breathe, so that Robins could catch them easily, and the air was full of all kinds of insects newly out from their long winter sleep in their soft cocoon beds, much to the delight of the Swallows and Flycatchers.
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