Country notebook:m.krishnan

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

"The heat gains strength from day to day, inexorably.Soon it will reach its sure climax : already the mornings open, not brightly any more,but with a sultry frown, and by 10 o'clock most spririts flag and most voices are stilled.However there are spirits no heat can wilt and voices gaining fluency now.The Koel, which was stuttering in April, is in full, fervid song, and alone among the mammals Palm Squirrels cheep shrilly and maddeningly through the fierce day.

Not they are immune to heat.Often I see a Squirrel resting in leaf shade in noon, inert and flat on its belly along a bough, legs dangling down either side, strangely like some bloodsucker in its limpness of limb and attitude.Presently it rises, and climbs the branch to the roof my verandah and halts on a rafter under the flat,radiant tile.Then all at once, a series of long,startling cheeps rend the stillness,each accompanied by an upward flick of the bottlebrush tail.From somewhere under the tile of the neighbour comes an unswering volley of cheeps,and the duet is on,each chirrup cleaving its way through the quivering air with the physical violence of an arrow,and penetrating to the brain.I get up,and chuck the first thing handy at the grey form on the rafter, and it scampers away,jabbering shrilly-a minute later it is calling again from the roof of the garage.

Why do these creatutres assail the enervated midday silence with energetic voices,when even the crows are quiet? At no time are Palm Squirrels are shy or silent: They chatter intermittently through the day and even at night, startled into wakefulness,they jabber.However, at other times their voices, even in shrill alarm, lack the irritating power and rhythmic insistence of their calling in May.I think their long,loud spells of calling in summer have a sexual significance,but cannot assign a more specific cause.

For though I have often heard the summer duet of squirrels, I realise my observation is too meagre for certain inference or attribution.

Speaking of the Three-striped Palm Squirrel(the creature I write about), an authority says,"The breeding habits of these,the commonest wild animals of India,are imperfectly known."I know, from several years of living with these creatures, that these squirrels breed many times in the year and not always in summer.Only a week ago a baby squirrel, perhaps a few days old,wandered into my house,and I remember seeing baby squirrels, and watching adults carrying coconut fibre to the nest, at other times of the year.But I believe it is only in summer,mid-summer, these squirrels are given to long bouts of calling.

Moreover, I know that both does and bucks indulge in this calling, and that it is not always squirrels of different sexes that call to each other.Perhaps these duets have only a social significance,after all.It is well known that animals that live more or less together like to keep touch by the free and frequent use of their voices,and it may be that feeling suddenly alone and uneasy in the hush of noon the squirrels start their insistent chirruping to reassure themselves and to provoke the voices of their fellows.-M.Krishnan

(This was first published on 20 May 1951 in The Sunday Statesman)

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

" I KNOW an aged tamarind at the foot of a hill, far beyond the line of cultivation. No other tree grows nearby,not even sizable shrubs-the sour leaf fall of tamarind inhibits vegetation in the neighbourhoods.Only stones and a few dwarf,woody,hard-bitten plants cover the ground beneath the tree; and here on a sunny afternoon, I have seen more bloodsuckers together than I have anywhere else-basking flat on every stone immediately outside the circle of shade,or crawling about within it.Even in wet weather,sheltering under the great dome of tree, I have been more acutely aware of the company of "garden lizards" than in any garden, though not in such unpleasant profusion as when it was sunny.

I have always wondered why bloodsuckers should foregather here in such strength, for the place is not especially rich in insect life or in anything else that is obviously attractive to these lizards.It is hard to get to know bloodsuckers, or understand their whims and prejudices, without being a bloodsucker oneself.They are different from other common creatures, so given to fits of passion and rage,distrust and imbecile behaviour.But then this is hardly surprising.They belong, properly speaking, to an age when we were not there, when great lizards roamed strange forests, flowerless and with green grooved trunks, and waded through primeval swamps.Dragons in myths and bloodsuckers in fact, are the survivals from the primitive part.

I used to think in my ignorance, that these creatures had survived in such numbers, when so many of their betters had perished, because they were not good eating-that like the Keatsian nightangle, they were immortal because "no hungry generations" trod them down! But I know now that predatory animals are less fastidious than I had thought.

Hawks kill and eat these lizards when they can, other birds take them occasionally, and mongooses and small carnivora reduce their numbers.Sometimes, it is true,the killer does not eat its victim, but the bloodsucker's looks provoke slaughter, however unpalatable its flesh.There is no survival value in not being eaten, if that does not mean immunity from attack.

In fact, the only protection the bloodsucker has, apart from its retiring disposition and formidable looks, is in its sorroundings, in the tangled, thorny bushes and fences that it loves, and into which it retires so promptly from its enemies.I do not know anyone on this before, but it is usually the male bloosucker that leaves this protective cover or strays far from it.Then, on the more exposed ground, the male tries escape first, but when no tree or bush is close by, it puts on an intimidatory display, it raises and lowers its flaming orange body endlessly on its livid legs and throws out its bloody jowls and dewlaps.

This display might well scare an impressionable foe, but the blackguardly Jungle Crow that attacks it has no susceptibilities.The bird hops behind his victim and with a quick, sideway tug at the tail, turns it over.The bloodsucker picks itself up, turns round and rushes open-mouthed at the tormentor, which side-steps the rush and repeats the attack on the long,obvious,unbreaking tail that is lizard's undoing.It is murder by slow degrees.Gradually the unfortunate creature is reduced to numb immobility,and the crow's assults grow bolder, till seizing the battered victim by the throat it flies away-to be mobbed by other crows.

Often,however,some thick-leaved tree at hand saves the bloodsucker.It is expert at putting a massive trunk between the onlooker and itself-it was only by reminding myself that I belonged to a higher stage in evolution and could not allow my race to be disgraced by inferior patience and cunning that I could get the sketch of a bloodsucker on a neem tree for the illustration (incidentally,it was a brilliant, pure chrome yellow, with a black half-collar and a little red at its throat ).Bloodsuckers climb spirally, a habit that baffles enemies (birds,especially) when they are on trees.

However,the males venture into the open quite often, resplendent in their frills and spikes and colour,and pay dearly for their daring.The ochreous females are bashful and sensitive to scrutiny as any pardanishin- they keep close to cover and they know ,somehow, when they are being watched.The age of pointed morals is as surely spent as the reptilian age (thank heaven), but it is fact that it is the modesty of the females that keeps the race of bloodsuckers still alive."-M.Krishnan


(This was first published on 17 June 1951 in The Sunday Statesman)