Country notebook:m.krishnan

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

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COUNTRY NOTEBOOK : M. Krishnan : Monkeying in the deep : The Sunday Statesman : 7 July 2019
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MONKEYING IN THE DEEP
(Swimming ability)

" THE MACAQUES as a family, are good swimmers. The Rhesus, the most familiar monkey of the North, does not take to water, can even swim submerged for some distance. Once I saw a Rhesus plunge into the water and swim about 10 yards submerged before surfacing and have many times seen these monkeys actually preferring a short cut across water to skirting a large pool, when at some convenient point the farther bank was near. They are not afraid of deep water, but take care to avoid strong currents.

Many people must have read newspaper accounts of a big Rhesus Monkey that plunged into a lake to rescue a human child that had fallen in. I was unable to verify this story, but see nothing intrinsically impossible in it. An unreasoned, instinctive urge to rescue an infant of its own kind in similar circumstances might well have been extended to a human infant.

My picture will prove that the Bonnet Monkey, the commonest monkey of the South and a macaque, is also a strong swimmer and does not hesitate to carry its baby with it while swimming, riding high piggy back and not clasped to the abdomen as usual, naturally not! The she-monkey was crossing a deep, wide temple pond when I took the picture.

Nothing is known about swimming abilities of the other Macaques of India -
the pigtailed and stumptailed macaques of Assam and liontailed monkey of the Southern hills. But probably they can swim well. I was given an account of how a liontailed macaque swam across the deep pool beneath a waterfall in Courtallam (in which pool I was nearly drowned), by man who claimed to have watched the feat.

But do Langurs swim? I doubt they do. Of the four Langurs in our country, three (the Nilgiri black Langur, the Golden Langur and the Capped Langur) are highly localised forest monkeys of whose life we know little. The Golden Langur (presbytis qeei) occurs in the Bhutan side of Manas, but from enquiry I learnt it was not* to be found on the Indian side. That proves nothing. The Manas is a wide fast-flowing river that most animals might not care to cross.

But I doubt if Langurs swim. I have mentioned three highly restricted kinds of Langur, and the fourth, the Common Langur, is not only common but is also the only monkey with an All India distribution from Kanyakumari to the Himalayas, from Maharashtra to Assam. I have often watched it near water in many different forests in the country (for it is essentially a forest monkey) and though it drinks regularly, the caution of its approach to water and the way it hugs the land while drinking, preferring to drink from puddle near a lake or pond direct, suggests a distrust of water.

I wonder if some reader who has been more fortunate than I can tell me if he has actually seen a Langur in deep water, and if at a pinch it can swim some distance, say, when it has accidentally fallen into deep water. Many animals which seldom enters water can swim a few yards, inexpertly, if they must. Even I can."

- M. Krishnan

This was published on 18 October 1970

* The Golden Langur (discovered in 1956) has subsequently been found in the adjoining and other forests of Assam in India. .
# The photograph of a She-Bonnet Monkey with baby riding on her back swimming and crossing a pond has not been reproduced here.

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

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COUNTRY NOTEBOOK : M. Krishnan : A Tiger of the Treetops : The Sunday Statesman : 28 July 2019
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Crested Hawk-Eagle

"IN September, going along a forest road at the foothills of the Nilgiris I saw a bird of prey in a treetop far ahead of me. It was sitting hunched on a horizontal branch, tearing with its beak at something held in its talons.
I was curious to know what it had killed, the prey seemed to be no bird, being a brown-grey mass with no feathers.It is a sound rule to presume that any bird you can see has seen you already, for a bird's vision is infinitely sharper and longer than ours. But this was bent on what it was doing, literally bent over its prey, and I thought I could creep up from behind for a closer look.

In this I succeeded better than I had hoped to. I got right up to the tree it was on without its being aware of me, but the bole hid it from view. Keeping my body behind the bole, I leaned my head out to one side and peered up.

It was a Crested Hawk-Eagle and its victim was a young hare - that much I could see at once. I could get only a back view of the bird, but the thick, powerful legs, feathered white to the toes, and the dark white-tipped plumes on top of the head dancing in the breeze is unmistakable. Evidently the kill had been made only minutes previously - the belly skin had been flayed and the bird was tearing at the flesh, and a slow, dark drop of viscous blood dropped down from the bough.

I kept still and silent, but all at once it knew I was there. It lifted its head from the hare, and keeping the body immobile, slowly turned its head to look down at me along its back; one glaring cadmium-yellow eye and then both as the face was turned further round stared down at me and then it lifted its wings slightly, took a small hop along the bough, and shed into the air the hare held in both feet, with only its head and long ears dangling down from the comprehensive clutch of the talons. With strong even beats of its powerful wings the Hawk-Eagle crossed the clearing, flying low, rose effortlessly above the tree-line sailed beyond and dropped out of sight behind the trees.

That hare was only three quarters grown and probably weighed only three pounds but still I felt surprised at the ease with which the bird handled its prey - after all that Crested Hawk-Eagle which was only a little larger than a Common Kite (though it had powerful pillar-like legs and thick murderously taloned toes) could not have weighed much over four pounds - from its slim compact build I thought it was a male - as in most birds of prey, the female is bigger built and more powerful.

Years ago in a rather similar open tree forest, I saw a Crested Hawk-Eagle carrying a fully grown hare, and more recently a giant squirrel. There are eagles much larger in size than this hawk-eagle, but this is a far bolder and fiercer hunter than they, in fact, the Hawk-Eagles as a tribe are among the greatest hunters among birds, and attack and kill prey larger than themselves, such as peafowl, which few of larger eagles do.

Though a handsome and impressive bird when seen from near from near its mottled browns and yellows merge with the colour and texture of bark and boughs, and it is inconspicuous in the treetops which it loves.It flies strongly and I think it has a longer wing than text-books give it credit for and it soars at times as well, but it is essentially a bird of tree-tops.

From its elevated perch it keeps a sharp lookout, often bobbing and angling its head to get a sharper focus, for something to come out of the cover into the open a bird, or a small mammal or even a snake. It drops swiftly down on its victim and the powerful talons squeeze the life out of it, the beak being also used to kill it at times. Its mode of hunting is more a specialised kind of thug-gery than the long soaring flights and spectacular stoops of the eagles and falcons - in fact it hunts rather like a Short-winged Hawk, lurking in cover to kill, and that is probably why it is called a Hawk Eagle."

- M. Krishnan

# This was published on 7 March 1971
+ The photograph of the Hawk-Eagle has not been reproduced here.