N.Vinoth Kumar
We can call him as a ‘jungle
folk’ in its true sense. Its not just because he wrote a book on birds, but he
made an immense contribution to the Indian ornithology as a whole. He traversed
day and night in the forests of India.
One who reads his field notes, will think that whether the author turned
himself as a bird.
When Douglas Dewar joined Indian
Civil Service in 1898, he wouldn’t thought of exploring the nature in India. British
civil servant by profession, he also pursued ornithology as an hobby. But once,
when he came to India, he
was attracted by India’s
biodiversity, which resulted in writing four books on avian richness of India by him.
Born in London on 1875, Dewar wrote around 14 books,
of many related to nature, during his life time. One of the book under review
is ‘Jungle Folk: Indian Natural History
Sketches’, which was first published on 1912. The book was recently
reprinted by Aleph publications, New
Delhi.
Having said that, ‘It is not of
the bigger jungle folk that I write – of lions, tigers…’ in his crisp preface,
his subjects of writing were about birds. The book has 44 chapters out of which
42 speaks about birds and 2 about cobra and squirrels.
His way of giving adjectives to
birds like ‘a Shakespeare among birds’ (Corvus splendens), ‘clown of the
forest’ (Hornbills), etc., makes a reader to dwell up on more on the subject -
birds. Through out the book, he gives sumptuous information about birds, which
were still now unknown to many. For example, he writes, ‘The robin, for
example, has been known to devour two and a half times its weight in earthworms
in a single day’. He writes that on a note of showing sympathy to ‘birds of
prey’ which are seen as villains. Preceding to the above example, he writes,
‘We should bear in mind that the average insectivorous bird kills in the course
of his life a vastly greater number of living things than does the eagle’.
These kind of information leave a reader who is a budding ornithologists in
awe.
It is interesting to know that
the Romans of ancient times, used to hold a festival in honour of the goose,
which is seen as ‘garrulous fool’. When he writes about Night Heron, he says
that ‘the bird only sleeps when it has nothing better to do. It looks upon
sleep as a luxury, not a necessity’. While explaining Indian Fly-Catchers he
says that, ‘There exist in the Indian Empire no fewer than fifty-one species of
fly-catcher. This fact speaks volumes for the wealth of both the bird and the
insect population of India’.
He also underlines that while Europeans likes to shoot a bird at flying, Indian
shikaris were shoot a bird sitting. A reader cannot get these kinds of details
even in encyclopaedias.
While portraying the birds, he
also deconstructs the ideas which were put forth by ornithologists of past. For
example, criticising French historian Jules Michelet as ‘wrong-headed
naturalist’ who wrote that ‘birds dread the night’, Dewar says, ‘Greater
nonsense than this was never penned outside a political pamphlet’.
Since he worked at then Madras for most part of
his tenure, the city found places in some of his notes. Pied-wagtail (Mount Road Bridge), Lesser Cormorant (Redhills Tank), Indian
Pitta (at least one favoured compound in Madras),
Indian Redstart, Night Heron are the birds he lists out. When referring to
pitas he says that, ‘I know of no better testimonial to the excellence of the
climate of that city’. When describes about Redstart he underlines, ‘the cuckoo
is welcomed in England as the harbinger of the sweet spring, so in Northern
India is the redstart looked for as the herald of the glorious cold weather’.
It is possible, after Independence
that our leaders could have taken a hint from Dewar’s writing, who commented
Common Peafowl as a ‘Swadeshi’ bird.
In the very article titled ‘A
Swadeshi Bird’ he also makes a reference to Nilgai. In which he says that,
‘Nilgai, even, may not be shot, because the Pundits, not being zoological
experts, labour under the delusion that these ungainly antelope are kine’.
While reading these lines, it is unable to avert the truth that the Centre in
the end of 2015, gave permission to Bihar to
slaughter Nilgais, which is seen as a vermin there. Pity!
Another important good thing a
reader can find in this book is, Dewar points out books on ornithology here and
there. Ornithological and Other Oddities,
How to Know the Indian Waders, and Garden
and Aviary Birds of India all three by Frank Finn, Bird Watching by Edmund Selous, Handbook
on the Management of Animals in Captivity by Babu R.P.Sanyal, Tower Menagerie by Bennet, Bombay Ducks by Captain Fayrer, Birds and Man by W.H.Hudson, Some Indian Friends and Acquaintances by
Col.Cunningham are the books he noted in his notes.
In certain places, he also sheds
some light on the bird research areas, which should be carried over by the
future ornithologists. At one point of time he says, ‘The connection between
climate and the distribution of birds is a fascinating subject about which very
little is known’. Having said this, he implies that there is a secret lies
between the climatic conditions and bird migration.
Throughout the book the author
names many ornithologists, historians, naturalist like Phil Robinson, Warde
Fowler, John Burroughs, Lockwood Kipling, Charles Kingsley, Dr. Blanford and
many others. He could have been given some terse introduction about them before
referring their ideas and opinions. Albeit, a reader who is interested in
birds, certainly can ‘google’ it and find information about those
personalities, it will be a difficult to an ordinary reader to follow ‘who is
who’.
His flow of writing resembles to
a flapping of a bird and hence, it is a ‘flying’ read! At one place he says, ‘Summoe opes, inopia cupiditatum’. But
that is not true with bird-watching!
