ourse of a railway journey in
August numbers of incubating saruses may be seen by any person who
takes the trouble to look for them.

"Raoul" makes the extraordinary statement that incubating sarus cranes
do not sit when incubating, but hatch the eggs by standing over them,
one leg on each side of the nest! Needless to say there is no truth
whatever in this statement. The legs of the sitting sarus crane are
folded under it, as are those of incubating flamingos and other
long-legged birds.

Throughout the month of August two of the most interesting birds in
India are busy with their nests. They are the pheasant-tailed and the
bronze-winged jacana. These birds live, move and have their being on
the surface of lotus-covered tanks. Owing to the great length of their
toes jacanas are able to run about with ease over the surface of the
floating leaves of water-lilies and other aquatic plants, or over
tangled masses of rushes and water-weeds.

In the monsoon many tanks are so completely covered with vegetation
that almost the only water visible to a person standing on the bank
consists of the numerous drops that have been thrown on to the flat
surfaces of the leaves, where they glisten in the sun like pearls.

Two species of jacana occur in India: the bronze-winged (_Motopus
indicus_) and the pheasant-tailed jacana or the water-pheasant
(_Hydrophasianus chirurgus_). They are to be found on most tanks in
the well-watered parts of the United Provinces. They occur in small
flocks and are often put up by sportsmen when shooting duck. They emit
weird mewing cries. The bronze-winged jacana is a black bird with
bronze wings. It is about the size of a pigeon, but has much longer
legs. The pheasant-tailed species is a black-and-white bird. In winter
the tail is short, but in May both sexes grow long pheasant-like
caudal feathers which give the bird its popular name. The
bronze-winged jacana does not grow these long tail feathers.

The nests of jacanas are truly wonderful structures. They are just
floating pads of rushes and leaves of aquatic plants. Sometimes
practically the whole of the pad is under water, so that the eggs
appear to be resting on the surface of the tank. The nest of the
bronze-winged species is usually larger and more massive than that of
the water-pheasant. The latter's nest is sometimes so small as hardly
to be able to contain the eggs--a little, shallow, circular cup of
rushes and water-weeds or floating lotu