to their own voices.
Most birds sing and make a joyful noise only at the nesting season.
Not so the barbets; they call all the year round; even unfledged
nestlings raise up the voices of infantile squeakiness.

The call of the great Himalayan barbet is very distinctive and easy
to recognise, but is far from easy to portray in words. Jerdon
described the call as a plaintive _pi-o_, _pi-o_. Hutton speaks of
it as _hoo-hoo-hoo_. Scully syllabises it as _till-low_, _till-low_,
_till-low_. Perhaps the best description of the note is that it is
a mournful wailing, _pee-yu_, _pee-yu_, _pee-yu_. Some like the note,
and consider it both striking and pleasant. Others would leave out
the second adjective. Not a few regard the cry as the reverse of
pleasant, and consider the bird a nuisance. As the bird is always
on the move--its call at one moment ascends from the depths of a leafy
valley and at the next emanates from a tree on the summit of some
hill--the note does not get on one's nerves as that of the coppersmith
does. Whether men like its note or not, they all agree that it is
plaintive and wailing. This, too, is the opinion of hillmen, some
of whom declare that the souls of men who have suffered injuries in
the Law Courts, and who have in consequence died of broken hearts,
transmigrate into the great Himalayan barbets, and that is why these
birds wail unceasingly _un-nee-ow_, _un-nee-ow_, which means
"injustice, injustice." Obviously, the hillmen have not a high
opinion of our Law Courts!

Himalayan barbets go about in small flocks, the members of which call
out in chorus. They keep to the top of high trees, where, as has been
said, they are not easily distinguished from the foliage. When perched
they have a curious habit of wagging the tail from side to side, as
a dog does, but with a jerky, mechanical movement. Their flight is
noisy and undulating, like that of a woodpecker. They are said to
subsist exclusively on fruit. This is an assertion which I feel
inclined to challenge. In the first place, the species remains in
the Himalayas all the year round, and fruit must be very scarce there
in winter. Moreover, Mr. S. M. Townsend records that a barbet kept
by him in captivity on one occasion devoured with gusto a dead mouse
that had been placed in its cage. Barbets nest in cavities in the
trunks of trees, which they themselves excavate with their powerful
beaks, after the manner of woodpeckers. The entrance to the nest
cav