" With us the Sarus is shy and difficult to shoot, except from
a bullock cart, or during the rains from a canoe. From the
latter, especially, they are easily killed.
" The female calls at daylight, during the time of incubation,
standing on the top of her nest, and any one desirous of finding
a nest should go out in a canoe to a likely place before daylight,
and watch from a high " tai" or paddy grower's hut, with
binoculars.
" The Burmans have many legends illustrative of the strong
affection borne by these birds for their mates, and are rather
averse to their being shot."
Taking the facts noted by Mr. Davis of the appearance of
these birds in large flocks early in August about Thatone, in
connection with what Dr. Anderson tells us of seeing large
flocks passing over head at Ponsce, in Upper Burma, apparently
migrating, the suggestion naturally arises whether it may
not happen that in Burma this species is, to a certain extent,
migratory, numbers of the Upper Burman birds coming south
to near the Gulf of Martaban to breed. The point is one well
worthy the observation of sportsmen in Burma, where, by the
way, Mr. Davis tells me he often used to shoot and send them
to friends at Moulmein, " who considered them a great luxury."
De gustibus, &c. But people are very hard put to for meat in
many parts of Burma.
T H E SARUS breeds freely over the whole of the North-West
Provinces, Oudh, and Upper Bengal, and more rarely in the
Punjab, Cis-Satlej, the eastern and southern portions of Rajputana,
and parts of the Central Provinces.
Captain Butler and Mr. Davidson found numbers of nests in
Guzerdt, north of the Nerbudda. Ramsay obtained the eggs
near Tounghoo, Oates in Lower Pegu, and generally, I believe,
we may say that the species is a strictly resident one, and breeds
wherever it occurs at other seasons of the year.
They lay in different parts of the country from July to
November, in which latter month Mr. Davidson has taken fresh
eggs in Guzerdt.
In Upper India they breed in July and August,* some few
laying in some seasons as late as the middle of September.
Soon after the first burst of the rains, i.e., towards the close
of June, the old birds begin to construct their nest. These are
in nine cases out of ten on some firm spot in the midst of the
largest jhi'l or swamp that they can find ; not always an island,
for they often build on sites completely overflowed, but some
spot that would be an island if the water fell eight or ten inches.
* Occasionally however they certainly breed also in the spring. Quite recently
Mr. Chill wrote to me from near Delhi :—"Last month (April) my men brought me
in a young Sarus about 20 days old, so it must have been hatched about the end of
Match I It Js rjuite a new thing to me to find this bird breeding in the spring."
THE SARUS.
The nest is a huge heap, a broad truncated cone, composed
of reeds and rushes and straw, varying much in size according
to situation and circumstances. At top it is about two feet in
diameter, with a central depression from four to eight inches
deep for the eggs. If, as is commonly the case, the nest is
placed in water, the bottom of the egg cavity will be from
eight to twelve inches above the surface of the water, and
there may be six inches to two feet of nest below water. On
more than one occasion, when in sudden and heavy falls, such
as we get in India, six and eight inches of rain falling within
twelve hours, the jhfls were rising very rapidly, I have seen
the birds very busy raising their nests. One nest that had thus
been raised, I measured a couple of months later, when the
ground on which it stood was dry, and found it to be fully nine
feet in diameter at base, and three feet in height, and it must
have lost at least a foot by settling. When built on land, surrounded,
but not overflowed with water, the nest is a much less
pretentious affair, perhaps five feet in diameter at base and a
foot only in height. Occasionally, apparently where they could
not get a large enough piece of water to secure, as they considered,
their safety, I have found them seeking this in concealment.
As a rule, the nest is out in the open, visible from all directions
at a mile's distance. In the few cases to which I refer I have
found it in dense beds of bulrush and reed so lofty that, even
when standing on its nest, the bird was only to be seen by
climbing a neighbouring tree. In these cases the rushes and
reeds, where they were thickest, had been bent and trampled
down across and across, so as to form a platform five or six
feet in diameter, and on this a comparatively slight nest had
been constructed.
Two is certainly the normal number of eggs, but I have
twice (out of more than one hundred nests) found three, and
I have also occasionally seen three young birds in company
with an old pair.
I remember one day, as I was coming home from Rahun, I
saw in a sheet of rain-water, some distance off the road, a Sarus
sitting on her nest, and the male standing beside her. I rode
as near the place as I could, and then sent my syce to get the
eggs. As he commenced wading towards the nest, the male
began to dance about, flapping his wings and trumpeting most
bravely; but when the man got within a few yards and landed
safely on the patch of dry ground on which the nest rested,
the male put his head down and ran off very crest-fallen to a
ridge in the water some fifty yards distant, whence he began,
with loud cries, to encourage his lady not to allow " that black
rascal" to take any liberties. She sat quite still, neither moved
nor cried, only as the man came close to her made such vigorous
pokes and drives at him that he got frightened and was
picking up a great dry branch to strike her with, when I called