During the following day the language of the robin abated neither in quantity nor quality; indeed, his noise began to get on my nerves. He used to perch when giving vent to his feelings, just above the heads of the _chaprassis_ who sat in the verandah awaiting orders. These men are not usually very observant, but even they noticed and grew annoyed at the robin’s noise, and on several occasions I heard them flicking at the robin with a duster. During the early part of the fourth day there was comparative quiet in the verandah, and I thought that the robins and mynas had settled their differences. I was mistaken. The quiet proved to be the lull before the storm. This burst about 4 p.m. The uproar brought me to the window; from there I saw that the robin was hissing with rage at a myna who was peeping into the robin’s nest. Then the cock robin flew at the myna and pecked at him. The myna, although three times the size of the robin, fled and flew from the verandah, followed by the swearing robin. A couple of minutes later cock robin returned alone. He then perched on the floor of the verandah, drew himself up to his full height, like the heroine in a penny novelette (who, by the way, appears always to slouch except when she is very angry), and stood there hissing with rage. This continued until a _chaprassi_, who was squatting in the verandah, drove the angry bird away. The next morning I found lying on the floor of the verandah the wreck of the robins’ nest, and noticed that a myna was constructing a nest on the site recently occupied by that of the robin.
Falconers divide hawks into the long-winged and the short-winged varieties. The former stand in much the same relation to the latter as the cross-country runner does to the sprinter. The long-winged hawks have dark eyes, while in the short-winged ones the eyes are yellow or orange; hence the two classes are sometimes distinguished as dark-eyed and light-eyed hawks. The various falcons, the peregrine, the laggar, the saker, etc., come in the long-winged category. When they catch sight of their quarry, they give chase and follow it, if necessary for a long distance, till they either lose it or are able to get above it in order to strike. The short-winged hawk is content with making one pounce or dash at its quarry; if it secures it, well and good, if it fails, it does not give chase. The sparrow-hawk and the shikra are familiar examples of the short-winged hawks.