there many and many a time before on the
same thievish errand, with an air of amusing secrecy and roguishness,
slips quickly along a horizontal bough and thrusts its arm into a hole.
Its eyes wander guiltily around, as though expectant of detection and
attack--an apprehension that quickly justifies itself in the shape of a
blue-plumaged bird that flutters angrily about the robber's head, causing
it to beat a hasty retreat. Birds' eggs are the booty it expected to
find, and, me-thinks, as I note the number and activity of the
freebooters to whom birds' eggs would be most toothsome morsels, watchful
indeed must be the parent-bird whose maternal ambition bears its
legitimate fruit in this monkey-infested grove. In me the monkeys seem to
recognize a possible enemy, and at my first appearance hasten to hide
themselves among the thickest foliage; peering; cautiously down, they
yield themselves up to excited chattering and broad grimaces.

Peacocks, too, are strutting majestically about the greensward beneath
the trees, their gorgeous tails expanded, or, perched on some horizontal
branch, they awake the screaming echoes in reply to others of their
kindred calling in the jungle. In the same way that monkeys are regarded
and worshipped as the representatives of the great mythological
monkey-king Hanumiin, who assisted Kama, in his war with Havana for the
possession of Sita, so is the peacock revered and held sacred as the bird
upon which rode Kartikeya the god of war and commander-in-chief of the
armies of the Puranic gods. Thus do both these denizens of the jungle
obtain immunity from harm at the hands of the natives, by reason of
mythological association. English sportsmen shoot them, however, except
in certain specified districts where the government has made their
killing prohibitory, in deference to the religious prejudices of the
Hindoos. The Rajput warriors of Ulwar used to march to battle with a
peacock's feather in their turbans; they believe that the reason why this
fine-plumaged bird screams so loudly when it thunders is because it
mistakes the noise for the roll of war-drums. Large, two-storied
passenger-vans, drawn sometimes by one camel and sometimes two, are now
frequently encountered; they are regular two-storied cages, with iron
bars, like the animal-vans in a menagerie. The passengers squat on the
floors, and when travelling at night, or through wild districts, are
locked in between stages to guard against surpr