Country notebook:m.krishnan

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

Madam Mrudul,

The elegant White-bellied Sea Eagle is the largest raptor in the Sundarbans. It is a resident and common bird and breeds here. It is more common in the southern part (core area) of the reserve towards estuary.The watch tower at Netidhopani just inside core area has also been closed for tourists.
The Sea Eagle is also seen inside buffer zone near some particular locations (Panchamukhani,Gomdi) with some luck. It does not like disturbance and moves high up in the air with the approaching launch and flies towards deep inside forest may be towards its nest.Sometime it is joined by another. It is seen in a particular area throughout the year and one may have a chance sighting of its nest on a tall tree far off from the river. It does not build its nest anew each year. However, it has to be reinforced naturally.
These birds usually remain partners (called mates) for life. My naturalist friend closely associated with the Sundarbans immediately confirmed it.
Kind regards,SaktiWild

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

" I REMEMBER watching a display by India's first jet-propelled aircraft, along with a milling crowd. There was a little boy by my side who was most informative- he told us the difference in flight and motive power between these planes and ordinary ones with propellers, pointed out peculiarities and explained the relative speeds of light and sound to a dear old lady. Thanks to the young scholar, we all knew at what speed the jet-fighters tore through heavens, looped loops and zoomed high again, and I joined in the general expression of wonder and applause.

But now, well away from this little boy and arithmetically-minded crowd to whom 600 mph meant so much, I don't mind confessing that I was not thrilled, specially. Yes, it was a fun watching those planes perfom those evolutions, and no doubt they were faster than the ones I have seen before, but they conveyed no sense of magnificient achievement of space to me. For one thing, their speed, as they went far above, was an abstruct thing that needed thought, even sophistry, for its appreciation; and even when they came near and were patently dynamic- well, they were engines, just big, loud engines, and their power and speed was mechanical, chemical and inhuman.

It is the living, mascular speed of animals that impresses me, even a squirrel dashes for safety. That is a speed I can appreciate, a quickness I can envy and marvel at. If you like speed, and want to see something sustained in its effortless, rythmic impetuocity, you should watch a herd of black buck going all out for a few miles- there is tangible real speed for you.

Black buck are the fastest things on legs in India, and perhaps anywhere in the world. As Dunbar Brander points out, even the now extinct hunting leopard can not match the buck for speed, though swifter from a standing start and for the first few furlongs, the hunting leopard is purely a sprinter and soon get spent. Black buck can keep their pace for 10 miles or more and when going flat out can attain 60 mph- a superb speed, not reached by any motor vehicle so far over the ground they inhabit. The muscles of black buck is like catapult rubber, and its hooves are not hard but elastic, its wind is almost inexhaustible and its vitality amazing.

No other animal I know of can keep going with such ghastly injuries, not even the great cats. In particular I recall a gravid doe (does are usually faster thn their overlords)that had lagged behind, and had a leg blown clean away by a bullet meant for the buck. The gun and I got into a jeep and went after the wretched thing to put it out of its misery. The black-cotton soil was very flat and permitted a very fair speed, but for two miles the crippled doe kept running far ahead, while our pity turned to wonder and admiration, before it fell exhausted and was shot.

The buck have a curious habit that is often their undoing. After outdistancing the chasing enemy easily, they turn at an angle and run across the path of the pursuer, so that by anticipating the mood and changing his direction slightly the gun can frequently get to within range, as they cross in front. Dunbar Brander suggests that this habit might be due to the desire of the buck to prove that they "have the legs of the enemy". Quite a likely explanation, but at times I have seen chased buck turn, not across the line of pursuit, but away from it. They seem to run in a curve, once they are clear of immediate danger, and they persist in their curved course once they are set on it. Naturally, this explanation leads to the question: Why do they have this running in a curve? That is also a habit shared by certain other animals, and a circuitous explanation occurs to me- but let's not have it.

Black buck are unquestionably among the most beautiful of world's beasts, and are exclusively Indian. Once they lived in vast herds all over the country, but are fewer and more local now. In certain places in South India for example, they are dwindling steadily and must soon be extinct unless immediate help is accorded. It is true that the slaughter of buck by "sportsman", irrespective of sex, numbers, or laws, is largely responsible for this dwindling, but there is a more pernicious though less immediate cause. Black buck live in open country, always, and such terrain is most easily cultivable and, so,most cultivated. Buck do not take to desert conditions: they must have green fodder.

A substantial part of their diet consists of grasses and plants like the wild bitter gourd (whose fruits they love), but living in the midst of crops (their original homes having been brought so largely under plough), they often help themselves to food crops. This, while providing a ready excuse for shooting the crop-raiders, leaves them to nowhere to go. The animals of the open will, I think, be the last to receive any recognition from those interested in the saving of our wonderful, vanishing wildlife, one of our richest national assets.

The fauna of flat country require plenty of living space, adequate grazing and a certain remoteness from cultivation if they are not to be tempted. These conditions are unlikely of realisation in India today, when every acre of land is held precious, though sometimes left fallow and often so poorly tended that it yields a negligible return. In any case, I think the beasts and birds of open country must look to the black buck for their salvation, for it is one claimant for protection among them whose arresting looks and swift charm might succeed in attracting notice."- M. Krishnan

*The sketch of fleeting black buck not reproduced here.
This was first published on 22 June 1952 in The Sunday Statesman

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

"NOSTALGIC memories flooded in on me when reading Vic Rosner's account of Four-horned Antelopes in The Sunday Statesman of 20 July; memories of eight years spent in a Deccan hill range where these antelope were almost common.

Those hills are flat-topped and covered with light deciduous jungles and lush grass- they are amongst the oldest hills in the world, scarped along their shoulders and with boulder-strewn crowns. The rainfall averages about 36 inches a year and the area holds sambar, pig, panther and occasional tiger, but no bear (though bears lived here once upon a time). I mention these details as Chousingha (Four-horned antelope) abound in these hills, and their distribution is somewhat capricious.

There are Chinkara in the rocky, open country immediately outside, but they never come up the hills; and the native Chousingha never strays into adjoining Chinkara territory. I was struck with this strict addiction to beats. Few people realise how vital suitable grounds for wild animals, how quickly they perish when driven out of their homes into strange countries.

The Chousingha is unique, Not only it is the only living thing, bar freaks and fakes, with four horns, but it has also adopted some of the habitats of deer, living in the woodland habitat favoured by deer. Those who want information about this remarkable antelope will find it in Dunbar Brander's 'Wild Animals in Central India'. I will not quote from the classic- and Vic Rosner's excellent article leave me with very little excuse for the writing of this note.

However, I may justify this in some measure by referring to the Chousingha's abilities as a jumper. Except for the largest ones, antelopes are nimble on their feet and in Africa (the true home of the tribe) there are little antelopes that leap high and effortlessly and live in steep places. Our Chousingha is our own, and distinguished from all others by the buck's four horns, but it is related to the African duikers.

The Chousingha has a high stepping action and carries itself with a crouch- it is higher behind than in front, and walks in cover habitually. Its hooves are long along their treads and slightly splayed, ensuring a firm grip on sheer surfaces. Altogether it seems equipped for climbing up and down and moving furtively and fast through the undergrowth. However, it can jump when it wants to.

I have seen a doe clear a seven-foot hedge with utmost ease, almost taking it in its stride. I was posted as stop in a frantic beat for a pair of Chousingha that had slunk into a patch of thick bush. The doe came galloping straight at me, saw me very late, spun around at right angles and with the same movement rose into the air and clear the hedge by my side. On other occasions I have seen Chusingha in flight go sailing over obstacles in their path, like bushes and small boulders. It is well known that this forest loving antelope bolt at considerable speed when alarmed, though they usually pull up and go into hiding pretty soon. But their leaping abilities seem to be less known.

Its love for undergrowth and steep rocky slopes offers the Chousingha a certain natural immunity from the shikari. There is not much risk of this most remarkable little beast being shot out, but man can threaten it in another way, incidentally. During my last visit to that Deccan hill range I noticed that it was getting rather thin on top, and I, who have personal knowledge of such things, know what that portends- I know it surely, in my scalp. The incipient atopecia that I noticed will thrive on neglect and spread apace. Then the deer and Chousingha go, from lack of suitable cover, and human indifference will kill them more ruthlessly than the gun can. But let us hope that I am mistaken, that man's ancient and primitive love for forests is really resurgent today, that it will move governments and survive their routine."-M.Krishnan

This was first published on 10 August 1952 in The Sunday Statesman

*Sketch not reproduced

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

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COUNTRY NOTEBOOK: M.Krishnan : THE SNAKE-BIRD : The Sunday Statesman: 13-July-2014
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The Snake-bird

(DARTER)


"If you wish in the world to advance,
Your merits you are bound to enhance,
You must stir it and stump it,
And blow your own trumpet,
Or, trust me, you haven't a chance!

WITH this preface from Ruddigore, I present readers which is probably the first clear picture of a darter on the wing. The photograph, I concede, could have been clearer, it could have shown more detail, particularly about the beak and eye. And the webbed feet, I know, could have been less latently displayed. All that is so but I believe no better flight-photograph of the bird has been taken.

Darters on the nest, showing their streaky, almost scaly plumage in sharp focus, darters sitting on a rock or bough with their wings spread out to dry in the sun. In the manner of the German Eagle, darters in the water with only their serpentine necks and heads above the surface - no doubt such pictures have been taken, but I have never seen one of the bird well up in the sky.

Those who know the prehistoric fowl will not be surprised at this. The darter does not, it is true, get through the air at bewildering speed, but its wing-beats are rapid when it flies low, and it sheers away the moment it sees a photographer. Before the shutter can be released, it has turned its head sharply away, so that the long kink-lumped, snaky neck ends in no obvious head! And when it soars, as it often does, it is so high (though it does not seem to be) that even the very long lens one can have little hope of getting an enlargeable image.

Having pointed out the negative excellence of my picture sufficiently, let me tell you about the bird itself. In action and repose, on the bough and in the water or air , it is like no other bird. It is not only the long, pale neck with the kink at its base, tapering to the pointed beak, that is snaky about the darter - even its speckled and streaked black-and-white plumage has somewhat reptilian pattern. And a darter on , sailing around on taut, sharply triangular wings, with neck and dagger-bill thrust out, and the long tail outspread, is the nearest one can hope to see to the archaeopteryx these days.

Actually, the darter is a cousin of the cormorants - but a cousin twice removed, quite unlike in looks and habits. Cormorants are gregarious and not particularly shy of men; they fly so close to the watcher that one can easily see the quick, sideway wag of the tail that the indulge in from time to time. The darter on the other hand, is unsociable and very mistrustful of man, keeping its distance. In the water, its big body is well submerged and hidden from view, and seeing only the slender neck and head projecting at a slant from the surface, one can appreciate the aptness of the name "snake-bird".

Like its cousins, the darter is an expert diver and swims powerfully below the surface. It hunts fish under water and is said to spear them on its sharp beak, the kink in its neck acting as a power-spring, as in herons. No doubt that is so, but I have seen a darter come up from the water with a fish held crosswise between its mandibles (and not spitted on them), which it threw up with a jerk into the air and swallowed.

In flight, the darter is more silent than the swish-winged cormorants, and much given to soaring on high. Even in the mixed heronries where it breeds, along with cormorants and waterfowl, it usually nests high and keeps itself to itself and its mate. Young darters are weird beyond belief, but they rapidly grow up into semblance of their parents. They take some time to learn to fly, and even when almost full-sized and quite full-fledged, they cannot fly - they look so out of place perched on a bough, which they clutch with their broad, webbed feet. However, even at that age they can swim with ease and speed."

- M.Krishnan

This was first published on 7 April 1957 in The Sunday Statesman

#The photograph of the bird in flight not reproduced here.

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

COUNTRY NOTEBOOK: M.Krishnan: THE 'WATER DOG' :The Sunday Statesman: 6-July-2014
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The 'WATER-DOG'
(Otter)

"Someone told me recently that he had read in some magazine (you know how vague people are about these things) that the Otter's original home was in Bengal, somewhere in the Sundarbans. That man came from Calcutta and I, who am frequently and powerfully moved by parochial feelings, know how polite and tactful it is to let some remarks pass. Nevertheless, I felt constrained to contradict him, for Otters are of worldwide distribution. In fact, barring Australia and a few other geographically insular places, there are otters in every country, different specifically and even generically it is true, but all unmistakably otters. Nor is their distribution limited to land. There is an authentic sea otter.

And wherever there are otters, men have felt fascinated by their grace in water and gameness on land, and their obvious enjoyment of what man lacking it so often and in envy, terms "animal spirits". Most men can feel, in a rather undefined and intellectual sort of way, the charm of wild creatures, but when you see an otter the feeling becomes quite tangible and personal.

Otters are not specially good-looking, as animals go, if you can bring yourself to look at them analytically and forget their vivid entities. The round bullet-head, the fierce, bristling whiskers, the sausage-shaped body, the thick, Labrador-tail, and the short stout limbs ending in broadly-webbed feet - none of these features in itself suggests grace or charm. But put them together and you have the otter, whose vivacity on land and swift, smooth grace in water is beyond question.

Otter lives mainly on fish and like other fish-eaters, has a prodigious appetite. It is by diving and swimming under water faster than its prey that it lives, so that its sheer speed is not, perhaps, remarkable - but the flow and easy grace and dexterity of its passage through water is captivatingly remarkable. One could say, without exaggerating simile or sentiment, that an otter swimming is the poetry of underwater movement - except that at times, when it twirls and twists and literally effervesces in water, mere metrical elan can provide no comparison.

Many animals play when they are young, but by the time they are adult the preoccupations of life and survival seem to sober them up. By the time a puppy is a dog or a kitten is a cat, it has lost much of its gawky or skittish exuberance. However, quite a few animals - many more than armchair naturalists realises - do find the time not only "to stand and stare", but also to play. But few of them are so devoted to fun for its own sake when adult as the otter.

It has been said that the otter's mode of play, tobogganing down smooth banks into water only to run up again for a fresh slide down, is strange for an animal so well adapted to aquatic gymnastics. Not at all. No doubt the otter does enjoy sliding down banks, but it is given to play in water as well. Like other aquatic animals, it likes to sustain something flat and bright on its nose and go twisting and tumbling through the water. I remember "borrowing" a new four-anna bit from a friend to throw to an otter in a zoo, so that it might be provoked into play by the coin's shine. My friend, who was somewhat utilitarian, was quite taken aback to see what I did with the coin, but in a minute he had forgotten all about the money worth of that disc of twinkling nickel that went bobbing up and down, weaving in and out, twirling round and round through the water, balanced on the otter's nose. I expect the keepers get such coins in the zoos, in the end - they are never slow to suggest the game to the visitor.

In our country, we have no less than three different kinds of otter - the Common, the Smooth Indian and the Clawless. They are all creatures of rapid streams and rivers and are said to have a rather peculiar distribution, being found in Kashmir, the Himalayas, Assam and Bengal, and then only South India (a rather vague specification, the last) - the Smooth Indian being also found in Sind.

Otter belongs to the Weasel tribe, but in practically every Indian language they are called "water dogs". That is a perfectly sound name, though, and logically justified, not because the otter is any sort of dog (except when it is a "dog-otter") but since it is the rule that when the first part of a compound name is adjectival, that name connotes a thing different from what the noun part of it means: "French-leave" and "German-silver" explain what I mean. The hippo, which is no sort of a horse, is the "river-horse", the muntijac (a deer!) is the "jungle-sheep", and the gaur is the "Indian Bison". No wonder, then, that the otter is the water-dog."
-M. Krishnan

This was first published on 17 March 1957 in The Sunday Statesman

#Two photographs not reproduced here.

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

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COUNTRY NOTEBOOK: M.Krishnan: Adapting Well from Crippling Despair: The Sunday Statesman:
09 August 2015
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ADAPTING WELL FROM CRIPPLING DESPAIR

" THE idea that nature tolerates only perfection, or at least an able bodied efficiency, and that creatures incapacitated by illness or injury soon find merciful release in death is largely the product of man's Spartan logic, and untrue. In nature, too, there are plenty of crocks, and though these are more liable to succumb to predators and stresses of adversity, often they adapt themselves so successfully to a life within their diminished capacities that they have little trouble in carrying on the "Struggle for Existence". A bit of a crock myself, I observe these disabled animals with special interest when I come across them in the jungles.

I remember an old Gaur cow with one eye blind, brilliantly green and opalescent, and the other not too clear-sighted, that seemed to find no difficulty in keeping with the herd; a one-footed Crow that I knew for years; an Antelope with three effective legs; and other such creatures. Some of them were only slightly incapacitated and, of course, many permanent injuries, such as the loss of a part or the whole of an ear or tail, are no real handicaps. In South India, it is rare to come across a big bull Elephant (especially a lone bull) that still retains the tuft of hair at the end of the tail, the tail-tip being bitten off in the course of the many battles the great beast fights with the rivals -- I have even seen Tuskers with their tails docked as briefly as the tails of show fox terriers used to be in in the old days! The wild Elephant , I think, is more prone to carry the marks of injuries than most of other animals.I claim that 90 per cent of "rouges" in South India, in any rate, turn rouges because of the crippling, or else enduringly painful injuries inflicted on them by men seeking to kill or drive them away with firearms. Again, in many parts of India, the humane Kheddah system of capturing of wild elephants is not practiced -- the barbarous camouflaged pit is much in vogue and has to see the mutilations that this method can inflict on the unfortunate captives to realise how horribly cruel it can be. Last summer I was in Periyar Sanctuary of Kerala for a day and followed a herd of cow Elephants on foot with a friend. It was impossible to observe individual animals in that close-packed herd, especially as the beasts were in six-foot high reeds but soon they look to the water, swimming easily across (elephants are powerful and skillful swimmers) to the farther bank of the canal, 150 yards away, and as they climb up the bare bank I noticed that one of the grown cows was lame, with one foreleg permanently bent in a crook and limping badly. Her gait was peculiar, a slow, stoop-backed hobble, but before I could get a good look at her through my glasses, the other elephants closed in around her and the herd moved into the cover. However I got a distant picture of that cow, with my longest lens.

This summer again I was in the Periyar Sanctuary and came across the lame cow near Salt Creek on 10 April. She was with two other cows, one of which had a young calf, grazing near the water on a steep bank. As our boat drew closely in, the wind which was blowing right across, shifted momentarily and the Elephants threw up their trunks, trumpeted and scrambled up the bank to the tree cover beyond. The lame cow, however, stayed on -- that bank was too steep for her to negotiate in a hurry. We drew closer and stopped, and after a while both the other cows came back; and one with the young calf stayed on the top of the bank, behind some bushy trees, but the other cow climbed down to rejoin the lame comrade.

Keeping stock-still, I was able to observe that crippled beast from only 20 yards away, for almost a quarter of an hour. The left foreleg was permanently crooked and inflexible; the "elbow" was stiff, and just above it there was a great mass of rounded callus tissue -- apparently the humerus had snapped there and been reset in a balled callus. The right foreleg, whether from injury (much the more likely explanation) or from having to bear the weight of the forepart of the body unaided, was bowed -- it did not exhibit any extraordinary muscular development, such as one might expect in a limb that has to do double duty. As the result of this lowering of the forequarters by injury, the backbone was humped and high behind the shoulder -- even on level ground this unnatural humping of the back was obvious, and when the animal was climbing down the malformation was grotesquely exaggerated. She was still a young elephant, though full-grown -- I thought she was from 20 to 25 years old. The "serivellous", the tushes the cow elephants normally lose with maturity, were protrusively noticeable beneath the base of the trunk.

People at the sanctuary pointed out that it was well known that occasionally elephants met with accidental injuries. The elephant-pit is quite a feature of the Kerala forests, and she must have fallen into one of these devilish contraptions. She moved slowly, in a humpbacked hobble, but munched the fresh grass with patent relish, supremely indifferent to our near presence. No doubt she had come to know that in the sanctuary men were harmless. Her companion kept pace with her, and both animals slowly grazed their way up a gently sloping ledge that led to the top of the bank and disappeared into a hollow beyond.

A week later, I came across three elephants bathing in the canal miles from Salt Creek. As our boat approached, one of the three cows walked out of the water on the bare, shingly bank, but soon plunged in again to rejoin her frolicking companions. What a high old time the huge beasts were having! They waded up the canal bed, towards the bank, then turned and plunged impetuously into the deep water again, diving right in and coming up with a buoyant roll, only the boss of the heads or the highest point of the back showing above the surface, hugging one another with their trunks and swishing their tails around, sucking water up their trunks and then squirting it out at one another in great jets! The most active of the three, I noticed, dived with a curious, porpoise-like roll, a high humped back alone showing above the water before the animal plunged right in, to come up right beside one of her companions in a tumbling huddle -- then all at once I recalled where I had seen this before.

That hump-backed lame cow was very much the life and soul of the party -- only if you have watched the way she gambolled with her companions, swimming into them, drenching them with jets of water from her trunk, would you know that this is a factual record; untinctured with sentiment. For long minutes the elephants continued their aquatic play, then a party of French tourists arrived in another boat, went in too fast and too close and shouted at the animals to make them get on to the land so they could take pictures with their snapshot cameras as the leviathans went scrambling up the bank. The last to go up the bank was the lame cow, her slow stumbling passage up the slope and into the jungles beyond contrasting so painfully with her zestful, fluid grace in the water.

Afterwards I learned that this lame cow was rarely to be found away from the canal, and that she was always accompanied by other cows from her herd. In her own ponderous, empirical way she had discovered the secret that cost ARCHIMEDES such sustained mental effort, and found out that in the water her crippled limbs were NO LONGER burdened with her body weight."

- M. Krishnan

This was first published on 22 May 1960 in The Sunday Statesman

# One sketch has not been reproduced here.

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

COUNTRY NOTEBOOK: M.Krishnan : Red Dog : The Sunday Statesman : 25 October 2015
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INDIAN WILD DOG or DHOLE

"ALMOST everyone who has written about The Indian Wild Dog or DHOLE remarked on its extraordinary likeness to a chestnut-coloured village dog, common herd dog of the countryside. There is some justification for the comparison, BUT NOT MUCH. The wild dog or village dog are of a size, and the latter is at times, almost as red-coated as the former -- and there the resemblance ends.

It should also be said that when one sees a wild dog in the jungles, usually there is no opportunity for a close look, and probably the likeliness is intended to be applied, by those who sense it, to such fugitive glimpses. But the fact remains that I have never known anyone mistake a wild dog for a village dog, even when one had a fleeting look at the animal, even in places where it was seen in jungles besides where domestic dogs were by no means uncommon.

What, then is the difference? Experts have decided that the wild dog was not one of the ancestors of the domestic dog, and have classified it apart from the genus CANIS ( to which the wolves, the jackals and the domestic dog belong ) because it lacks a molar by comparison and has more mammae. Such anatomical differences, however, need to be looked for. Nor is the distinction in the peculiar tail of the wild dog, with a thick, black brush on the terminal half of the short, straight tail -- there are village dogs with short, straight, bushy tail.

Once I asked this question of a Shikari friend of mine, when a hunting party returned with a wild dog shot in the jungles where we did not expect it. This man and I were in camp when the party returned, and seeing the head of the wild dog protruding from a sack, he identified it at once. How, I asked him, did he know that it was a wild dog and not a village dog?

He is the kind of man who can, with no affection of modesty, make the old-fashioned excuse in the preface to his book of hunting adventures (if he ever gets round to writing a book) that he is more familiar with the rifle than the pen. He took a long time to answer me, and after much introspection came out with the reply that he had known it was a wild dog because no one will bother to shoot a village dog. And when I pointed out that a village dog could have been shot by mistake, he gave up. I suggested to him that he had known it was a wild dog because its head had certain feral look, and instantly he agreed -- that's it, he said, now that you say it, I distinctly remember it was just that, the Feral Head, that made me spot it straightway. He then asked me what the word 'Feral' meant!

I am afraid that most people asked this question would plump for the same answer, that a wild dog looks wild. And it does. However, this wild look can be described in specific and anatomical terms, provided one is allowed the jargon of the show-ring. The Wild Dog stands taller than a Jackal but is less leggy, it is about 20 inches in the shoulder, and a full-grown Dog (in South India) weighs about 40 pound -- bitches are smaller and lighter. The animal is low-to-ground and has short limbs, but these are hard-muscled, exquisitely proportioned, and low in the hock and wrist; the body is reachy, and noticeably thin-waisted. The coat is smooth, harsh, and not too fine, and a bright chestnut in colour, with the hair on the inside of the ears and limbs paler. The tail is not feathered at the base, but carries a heavy, black, coarse-haired brush on its terminal-half: when the animal is moving, the tail is carried gaily.

The head is distinctive, with the short jaws tapering to a blunt point -- in a front view, the head has the appearance of a broad wedge, and in profile it is decidedly down-faced, with hardly any stop, and with the jaws deep though short; in profile, the resemblance to a bull-terrier is noticeable; the wild dog's short, deep jaws and down-face serve to distinguish it at a look from the Wolf and Jackal (which are long in the jaw) and the Fox (which has a snippy muzzle) and also from the village dog, which is never down-faced. The ears are rounded, and well furnished with hair on their insides and the feet have between the toes.

The gait is also distinctive. Crossing open country, wild dogs mat trot on occasion, but their usual gait is a canter, which serves to get them over and through the undershrub of the forests effectively -- they do not have the easy lope of the wolf, or the airy gallop of jackals and foxes moving at speed. But of course the most obvious thing about the wild dog is the red coat; the colour of this may vary from a fulvous chestnut to a deep brick-red coat, but always red.

For generations the wild dog has been considered as a pest in India, and shot at sight. For many years there was a reward for each wild dog killed -- this reward may still be there in places. It was thought that the wild dog's ruthless methods of hunting left the herbivores of the forest with no chance, and that nature had to be helped by shooting down the hunter, if the herbivores were to be saved from extermination. I think sentiment, too, had much to do with this feeling against the wild dog. Wild dogs hunt in packs, small or large, and follow their prey (usually deer) by scent till the quarry is tired out; it is then attacked, the dogs from the following pack sprinting in turns to catch up with the fleet-footed quarry, springing at its sides and tearing out a mouthful of flesh in a quick bite. The victim often has the intestines trailing out of a gaping hole in the abdomen or is otherwise grievously mutilated before it dies.

While they are utterly relentless and indefatigable in their hunting, wild dogs lack the power of the greater cats (and even some of the smaller predators) to kill instantly -- even Wolves are quicker at the finish. But then, that is their mode of hunting, and neither their courage nor their tenacity has ever been questioned. They are the only animals of their size that can and do attack prey that is much larger and more powerful than themselves, such as Boars and Panthers (the latter usually escapes the pack by climbing), in spite of several of their numbers being killed or severely wounded -- they have even been known to attack and kill the mighty Tiger, in a large pack.

Wild dogs are typical jungle dwellers -- unlike the wolf, which is a plains animal in peninsular India. It is said that as soon as they enter the jungle, the deer and other herbivores move out, those remaining being quickly killed. I have seen deer disappear from jungles with the arrival of wild dogs, but in Karwar, in the Supa and Vironli blocks, I have also seen wild dogs on many occasions, and the deer (both Sambar and Chital, and even the Mouse-deer) were very much there. The truth is that we have yet to learn many things about the lives of our forest animals.

It is a fact that the wild dog offended the sportsmen of the past by driving away game from the forests and that is probably why a reward was set on its head. Even today, no old fashioned Shikari will concede that wild dogs are not unmitigated vermin. Personally I have not the slightest hesitation in saying that as exterminators of our dwindling wildlife, the wild dog is nowhere, compared to shikaris, poachers, trappers and similar men.

The sanctuaries where no animal (including wild dog) can be shot, I have seen deer and other herbivores thriving, in spite of undeniable presence of wild dogs. Such protected jungles when thrown open to sportsmen and tourists, quickly lose their wildlife within two or three seasons. I give no specific details, but I may assure the reader that I say this from personal knowledge, checked and rechecked. A moment's thought will show that there is no substance in the fear that wild dogs will kill off all the other forest animals, if not kept in check. No herbivores would have survived, in large numbers, from the days when we had no hunting laws if wild dogs are, in fact such destroyers. The truth is that though their mode of hunting may revolt us, wild dogs serve a salutary purpose in Nature's scheme of things, and provide a necessary check on the fecundity of the herbivores."

- M.Krishnan

This was first published on 18 December 1960 in The Sunday Statesmam


# One sketch of a pack of Wild Dogs drawn by M. Krishnan has not been reproduced here.

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

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COUNTRY NOTEBOOK: M. Krishnan : The Aggression of the Vegetarian : The Sunday Statesman : 01 November 2015
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THE AGGRESSION OF THE VEGETARIAN

"IT is hard to say who first expounded it, but the thesis that among Indian wild animals the larger herbivores are, as a rule, more aggressive towards men than the carnivores has been the conviction of more than one naturalist-shikari who knew our fauna intimately.

We are speaking of normal attitudes and bents -- not of exceptional reactions or abnormal, cultivated tastes. The man-eating Tiger and Panther must be left out of this consideration, and also the rouge Elephant (which is often an animal maddened by abiding pain of a man-inflicted injury). And we should also leave out the fright reaction of animals closely confined and provoked; a captive Tapir, probably the most timid of all beasts, has been known to savage a man who caused it pain.

Even with all these limitations, the thesis might seem absurd at first sight. We think of carnivores as specially savage animals -- in spite of the fact that Man's best friend is a carnivore! That they kill to live is something that makes people think of them, at all times, as likely killers.

But normally no carnivore attacks man. When excited, as when courting, or when apprehensive, as when guarding cubs, a Tiger or Panther may attack a human intruder, but being equipped with exquisite senses, and being swift in their nervous controls, they almost invariably give a timely warning, often several warnings, before they attack.

I can easily find support for this view that it is chance-met herbivores that are more dangerous by citing the zoo experts. Any experienced zoo man will tell you that the greater cats give him little cause for worry , and it is some of the old dog-monkeys and, in particular old bucks and stags (and we always think of antelopes and deer as such harmless, lovable creatures) that are really dangerous. But I will not cite this testimony. In my opinion, animals, especially mammals, live under such artificial restraint in even the best-run and planned of zoos that observations of these captives helps little in understanding their true nature.

It is especially the adult male that is aggressive among the herbivores. The bull Elephant and the lone bull Gaur can both be really dangerous on occasion. The bull gaur is normally a most peaceable beast, very shy of man, and rarely attacking except under extreme provocation -- it is the bull wild Buffalo that is truculent by nature. But there are authentic instances of an old lone bull gaur attacking men without provocation, and I myself knew, for a ticklish week, that a lone bull was so restive that to approach him was to ask for trouble. The rather idyllic picture of him reproduced here, with sunlit wild flowers against his shade darkened flank, is a momento I specially value of a critical moment.

When a bull Gaur does go for a man, he is presistent and savage in attack, continuing to trample, gore and toss the victim long after death. This is generally true of herbivorous aggressors, which lack the merciful swift and clean efficiency of the carnivores in killing.

Ask any true Jungly, living on the outskirts of a typical forest area holding elephant, gaur, deer, tiger, panther, bear and pig, and he will tell you that it is the Elephant that he fears most. Being mainly nocturnal and crepuscular, being so early with their perception of the approach of the man and so quick to get away from him, or at least to give him due warning not to approach closer, the Greater Cats rarely cause humanity in the jungle any anxiety. Sloth Bears (which are vegetarian in the main) can be dangerous; being short-sighted and given to preoccupations, at times they take no notice of one till one is almost upon them -- and their behaviour is unpredictable. PIG in the jungles usually give men a clear berth, but on occasion an old Boar may stand his ground and turn aggressive -- when there can be no two opinions on what the human intruder should do! However, it is the mighty Elephant that people whose business takes them through elephant jungles really dread. In places where they have not been disturbed or molested, as in some sanctuaries, elephants may be very tolerant of humanity. But elsewhere in the Nilgiris for example, they can be aggressive and dangerous.

It is usually a Lone Bull that one has to beware of, but I have heard of an entire herd attacking transport lorries. Personally, I think this truculence is a comparatively new development, caused or stimulated by the constant disturbance of human invasions of their territory, probably also by occasional injury inflicted by men -- elephants are both long-lived and intelligent. The fact remains, however, that though one can find reasons for a tusker turning aggressive, he is a singularly dangerous beast. The uncanny silence with which he can move, the deceptive-seeming casualness of his movements, his persistence in attack and the fact that unless one can jump down a steep bank it is hardly possible to outrun an elephant, and quite impossible in bushy or grassy cover, all make an encounter with a misanthropic tusker specially risky and terrifying. Luckily he is shortsighted, and if one gets quickly behind a tree or bush, hugs the earth and freezes, chances of escape are excellent."

-M. Krishnan

This was first published on 19 February 1961 in The Sunday Statesman

#The photograph of the lone bull Gaur is not reproduced here.

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

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COUNTRY NOTEBOOK: M. Krishnan : Barking Deer : The Sunday Statesman : 29 November 2015
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THE MUNTJAC

"THE MUNTJAC is a creature of many aliases. It is the Muntjac (from its Malayan name), the Barking Deer, the Rib-faced Deer and the "Jungle Sheep" of early South Indian sportsmen -- the last derived from its Tamil name "kelai aadu", meaning "the sheep or goat that creates a din". The loud, repeated alarm call of this little deer, and the ridges down its face that end in the curious, pedicellate, hooked horn of the male, have earned for it these many descriptive names. And none of them is strictly accurate.

To my mind, the word "bark" suggests a sharp, accurate sound. When Byron wrote,

Tis sweet to hear the watch
dog's honest bark
Bay deep-mouth'd
welcome as
We draw near home;

Tis sweet to know there is an
eye will mark
Our coming, and look brighter
When we come,

he was rather hard pressed for a rhyme for "mark" -- the peculiarly American construction, "there is an eye will mark", further testifies to the poetic strain.

Actually, the Barking Deer's alarm is neither a bark nor a deep-mouthed bay. Years ago, I saw a crossbred Newfoundland dog (belonging to the Captain of a passing ship) at a harbour, and that huge, panting beast has somehow developed laryngitis in the humid heat: its hoarse, long-drawn voice was the nearest I have heared in any animal to the Barking Deer's.

Some sheep, too, have similar voices, but the Deer's call, though not sharp, is never the quavering "blah" of a hoarse-voiced sheep; it has an unmistakable 'note of alarm' in it, in spite of its bronchial depth of tone, a querulous anxiety in the abrupt ending. I remember the first time I heard this call, when what alarmed the deer was my near presence -- it stayed hidden in bush cover and sounded its inexorable alarm, till the Gaur I was stalking with a camera had bolted, and till I had removed myself far from the place.

Like the swearing of the Langur and the Bonnet Macaque, the deer's call is an alarm widely understood by all denizens of the jungle, and is not sounded unless the presence of a predator or some suspicious-looking stranger excites the alarmist. Other Deer calls are not always warnings -- the "pook" of the Sambar and the "shrill bark" of the Chital, for example. But when anything in the jungle hears the hoarse, repeated bronchial bark of the Muntjac, it takes warning at once.

Another curious sound produced by this deer, a series of quick clicks like the sound of castanets, has been the subject of much speculation. I believe it is generally accepted now that this is only the usual coughing alarm call broken up into small, consecutive bits by the jerky action of the deer's gateway. I have heard this only once, from too far away to have any opinion.

Unlike most deer, the Muntjac is usually solitary; occasionally it may be found in a pair. It is an active beast and spends much time on its feet, but keeps more or less to its own beat of the forest. I have watched it many times, late in the morning and early in the evening, moving quietly through the undergrowth, inconspicuous in spite of the bright chestnut of its coat. The feet are trim and small, though the limbs are thick and well-muscled on top, and the animal moves with a high-stepping action even when slinking along, setting down its dainty hooves vertically on the forest floor, covered with dry leaves, without rustling anything. And many times I have seen it lifts its muzzle up to an overhanging bough, wrap an improbably long tongue around a leafy twig and strip the leaves clean by pulling its head away.

This little deer is perhaps the choosiest feeder of its tribe -- and its diet is probably more omnivorous than that of other deer. Even when I have been able to keep it in sight for an hour, it never stopped long at any place, tripping along from bush to bush, picking a leaf here and a bud there with fastidious selectiveness."

-M.Krishnan


This was first published on 16 April 1961 in The Sunday Statesman

# One beautiful drawing of the Deer is not reproduced here

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

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COUNTRY NOTEBOOK: M.Krishnan : MORE ABOUT BARKING DEER :The Sunday Statesman:13 Dec 2015
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BARKING DEER ( MUNTJAC)
(Contd.)

" SOME things are questions of opinion, and not of fact. I was moved to this thought by Mr. Mukul Chatterjee's letter (The Sunday Statesman, 23 April) on my note about BARKING DEER in the previous Sunday's magazine. He thinks the deer's alarm call is a true bark and shorter than a dog's -- I think is is longer and much hoarser. Clearly a difference of opinion, easily explained -- in assessing the quiddity and length of a canine bark, Mr. Chatterjee and I are thinking, obviously, of different dogs!

But when he goes on to say that I have pointed out "that the Barking Deer is omnivorous", and adds "but this species is only known to be purely vegetarian"; I have every reason to doubt that any deer is prone to mixed diets", Mr. Chatterjee is raising a factual issue. And of course he is dead right in saying that deer are strictly vegetarian to the extent to which any mammal is vegetarian as a class.

LET me quote the offending passage from my note: "This little Deer is perhaps the choosiest feeder of its tribe -- and its diet is probably more omnivorous than that of other deer." I must confess that I feel greatly embarrassed by the latter part of this sentence, and surprised at myself -- in writing "Country Notebook" for almost a dozen years, I have not been guilty of a similar gaffe. As the sentence stands, it can have only one meaning, i.e, that while deer are in some degree omnivorous, the Barking Deer is perhaps more omnivorous than the rest. And that was not what I meant to say at all. What I meant was that while deer, in general, are vegetarian in their diet, perhaps the Barking Deer goes in for non-vegetarian fare occasionally.

Indian Deer -- and we have more species of deer than any other country -- live on grass and herbs, foliage, buds, fruits and bark: occasionally they may eat tubers and bulbs and perhaps also lichen and similar plants. Anyway, their diet is entirely vegetarian. The Barking Deer, however, is said to indulge in less blameless fare once in a way.

Let me quote Dunbar Brander, whose accuracy in observation and report are above suspicion on this point. He says, "I once kept a Barking Deer as a pet, and an excellent one it made. Like many wild animals, it was much addicted to drinking hot water, and I can confirm the observations of others to the effect that they will eat meat." Clearly, what he means is that he can confirm, from the knowledge of his pet, what others have said about Barking Deer eating meat -- the sentence is not to be construed literally as meaning that Dunbar Brander can confirm that these others (who have observed the occasional non-vegetarian lapse of the deer) are given to meat-eating.

I find this confusion of pronouns, by a writer who has so justly been described as "notoriously accurate", strangely comforting; apparently, there is something about the MUNTJAK that makes naturalists, writing about it, careless in their language!

Dunbar Brander adds, " In fact, I once saw a Barking Deer in the jungle snuffing round a tiger's kill in a way that suggested that the wild animal might also be guilty of this practice." All this, of course, proves nothing. The behaviour of captive animals, especially in regard to what they eat, is no proof of their habits when wild. Dunbar Brander does not say that he saw the Muntjak feeding of the kill -- only that he saw it snuffing ( and he meant "snuffing" not "snuffling" or "sniffing") at the meat speculatively. The verdict must be the cautious Scots "not proven".

I myself missed narrowly missed recording the Barking Deer's occasional indulgence in non-vegetarian fare a few year's ago. I was then camped on a hilltop and one evening my factotum reported that a Bear was digging a termite mound barely a furlong away. Taking the only loaded camera available, I rushed to the spot: there, on the hillside some 40 yards from the edge of the plateau, there was a freshly demolished termite mound, but no bear. By screwing on an eyepiece to the detachable lens of my camera, it could be converted into an efficient telescope, and luckily I had the eyepiece with me. I sat behind a bush and scanned the hillside through the telescope for the bear, and found nothing. Presently, a full-grown male Barking Deer emerged from the bush cover and walked up to the termite nest: it put its muzzle to the freshly dug mound and began to lick and swallow something. Through the glass I could distinctly see the termites crawling on their rudely torn-up tunneled home, but the Deer's muzzle was hidden by a ridge and I could not actually see what it was licking up. Another minute, and this point would have been settled, for the Muntjak's muzzle would have cleared the obscuring ridge, but right then my companion remarked in a loud voice, "Look, the Jungle-Sheep eating white ants!" -- and without so much as a yap the deer disappeared into the cover. Subsequent inspection of the anthill was unrewarding, though I even tested the crumbled, blown earth (much to my companion's delight) and found it not saline but only muddy. "Not proven", Again.

I am unable, personally, to confirm Mr. Chatterjee's remarks on the gustatory appeal of Barking Deer meat being a vegetarian, but I can speak with authority on its aggressiveness when wounded or cornered. Mr. Chatterjee says that its hooves are its chief weapons, and that he has seen a man wounded by a Muntjak. All deer use their forefeet in defence, specially the hinds. The stags use their antlers both in defence and attack and often with decisive effect, but I doubt if the male Muntjak's hooked horns are much used in fighting.However, it has another potent weapon.

Let me quote Dunbar Brander on the point once more. "During the rut the males often fight fiercely and their chief weapons of offence are their long upper tusks. These are sharp and protrude about half inch from the gum. They are not fixed firmly into the jaw but are retained in a position by the surrounding tissues and can be moved and it is probable that the animals can control their position to a certain extent. The wounds these tusks are capable of inflicting are astonishing, and I have shot bucks, which have been fighting, with deep gashes on the face and neck. I have known them round on a fair-sized dog and inflict a wound on the back of its neck that if placed a little lower would probably have been fatal. When brought to bay, they show extraordinary courage and they would even stand up to a man."

On the Muntjak's method of attack, I can speak with more expert assurance than Dunbar Brander even. On the the inner aspect of my right thigh, just above the knee, there is a two-inch long scar. Acquired more than 30 years ago, when I was a schoolboy, for the first few years this honourable scar of battle was quite impressive, much longer and heavily ridged. It was caused by a male Barking Deer in a zoo. Feeling curious about the displayed tusks of this creature, I clambered over the fence and got into its little pen and when no one was looking, and tried to get hold of it by the horns. With one swift, sideway movement of the head, it inflicted a tearing injury with its tusk, and in record time I was on the right side of the fence again, my curiosity fully satisfied. I was in considerable pain and the wound bled copiously, but what alarmed me then was the thought that if any of the zoo staff got to know about my adventure, I'd surely get jailed for breaking the rules. I sneaked my way out, any my explanation for the wound, which needed stitches, was that having got accidentally locked in I had to climb the compound wall of the zoo to get out, and that one of the palings of the wall had caused the injury. The explanation was never questioned and long after I had reached mature adulthood I still stuck to the story when I had occasion toaccount for the scur -- curious how abiding one's early fears are!

I am now coming out with plain unvarnished truth in the interest of science. Barking dogs may not bite, but Barking Deer do.One last details about this surprising little animal. The Barking Deer is an Asiatic animal, limited to a few species distributed over China, India, Burma and Malaya and nearabouts. But it is to be found wild in England, in Derbyshire and a few other localities, having been introduced and escaped from zoos, and what is more the Indian species and the smaller Chinese species have interbred in England!"

-M.Krishnan

This was first published on 21 May 1961 in The Sunday Statesman

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

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COUNTRY NOTEBOOK : M. Krishnan : LION-TAILED MACAQUE: The Sunday Statesman: 22 June 2014

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LION-TAILED MACAQUE


"THE Lion-tailed Macaque comes from where I do - the far South - and it is with pleasure that I introduce it to the readers of The Statesman, many of whom may not know this shy, forest-loving animal. However, I must confess that my pleasure is tinged with regret, for this, the most personable of our monkeys, is now rare where it was not uncommon before, and a naturalist living in the forests of Malabar tells me that it is getting rarer.

It is to be found in the heavy, evergreen forests of southernmost districts of Madras, and Kerala and the Western Ghats, right up to south Canara. Such forests are getting thinner with the with the inexorable increase of humanity and a creature so restricted in its range and so dependent on a sylvan habitat is especially in need of protection.

But perhaps my fears are somewhat exaggerated for, unlike most Indian monkeys, this one gives humanity a wide berth, and man has little cause to persecute it.

The first thing I should tell you about the Lion-tailed Macaque is that it is not lion-tailed. It is a thick-set, short-tailed monkey whose hands, however, are narrow and long and sensitive-fingered; its face is black and it is black-bodied and has a flat, black crown to its head, but its face is fringed all round with luxuriant grey whiskers, the kind of very full whiskers one sees in portraits of mid-Victorian elders.

My photograph shows a young captive female - in the adult male (which is larger, heavier and more powerful) the whiskers develop into a splendid, silver mane that is set off by the black of the body. Strictly speaking, a mane is elongated neck hair and this is really whiskers and beard, but had this Macaque been called the Lion-maned Macaque, no one could have objected to the name - the male's whiskers do recall a lion's mane to mind. But "Lion-tailed" is ridiculous, for not only is the tail short and convex in its curve and in every way non-leonine, but it is also not tufted at the tip like a lion's.

I think the term "wanderoo" was once loosely applied to this macaque, but now appears to be restricted to a black Ceylonese monkey. And so we are left with the choice of the unhappy common name "Lion-tailed Macaque", and the scientific Macaca silenus (Linn). What a choice!

This macaque lives in family parties and small troops, and is respected by other monkeys in its range. It is remarkably free from nervous fidgets for a macaque, climbing and walking with an unhurried dignity as a rule, though capable of speed on occasion. People who have tried keeping it as a pet report that the male get savage and intractable when they grow up. Animals that love forests and freedom so much do not take kindly to cages and chains.

Not that this monkey is sullen or fierce by nature. It is delightfully playful when young, and even when an adult indulges in rough and tumble frolics with its fellows in its forest homes. An old male, it is true, acquires a mature, patriarchal dignity with age, worthy of its great, hoary mane, but it is deeply attached to its family party and quiet by disposition. Even its voice is unlike the voice of other macaques - not the usual rattling snarls and jabbering, but an almost human "Cooee" - a party of these monkeys call to one another in soft, mellow coos, reminiscent of a bird rather than a mammal.

I have the feeling - based, I admit, on the slenderest hearsay - that this monkey is perhaps found over a wider range in the South than is now recognised, in many places where there are great evergreen forests. Probably this is just wishful thinking, but I am quite sure that that the Lion-tailed Macaque deserves to be known widely all over India."

-M.Krishnan

This was first published on 13 January 1957 in The Sunday Statesman


#Photograph of a female Macaque not reproduced here.