by M Krishnan
I assumed my most pompous manner. ‘I beg your distinguished pardon, Sir,’ I said to him, ‘but I stick to my “hinds”; after all, you always say “chital stag”, not “chital buck”.’ I wanted to add that the young of chital were invariably termed ‘fawns’ and not ‘kids’, but refrained from doing so, in view of his absolute certainty.
He did not say that after all this was a matter of English idiom, and that English was his language, not mine; he did not refer to his longer years and experience and his reputation (of which I knew nothing, being a non-shooting, vegetarian sort of man) as a shikari. Does, always does, he pronounced with brusque finality, and that was the end of the matter.
In a number of shikar books, written by European officers in India, you can find this confusion. The chital, after all is a medium-sized animal, and as in all Asiatic deer the females are smaller than the males and wholly hornless. To call them ‘does’ might seem natural, but it is definitely incorrect. I must add at once that the more informed and authoritative of these authors have never made this mistake—men like the brothers Burton, Dunbar Brander and Champion have always called female chital ‘hinds’.
I have so often, and with such sincerity, paid my tribute to the magnificent work done by British officers in India in building up the natural history of the country, that I can afford to be critical of the minor faults of some of these ‘sportsmen’. Before doing so, however, I would like to take the opportunity to point out, once again, what an uphill task the building up of the scientific literature on India’s fauna and flora was. For one thing, there was no reliable background of indigenous natural history to help: for another, the vast territory involved, its varied climates and soils, and the exuberance of plant and animal life, required the close cooperation, over generations, of professional and amateur naturalists, many of them British civilian or army officers who took to shikar as a relaxation and then became interested in the fauna. The collation of the knowledge gained was always done by expert biologists, but the collection and observation work was often done by amateurs—still, the scientific integrity of the effort was never relaxed.
I am convinced that the greatest achievement of British rule in India, the one undeniable and wholly admirable achievement, has been the evolution of our natural history and the systematic study of our fauna and flora. Towards this, particularly towards our understanding of animal ways, a number of ‘gentlemen sportsmen’, without the professional biological equipment of IFS men, have contributed quite a lot. But they have also contributed many misnomers, some deplorably imaginative literature, and the kind of English that would have supplied Fowler with material for yet another book.
Who was responsible for calling our Gaur, wholly unrelated to the bison family, the Bison? Who named the Tahr of the South the Nilgiri Ibex? Who coined the utterly misleading name, Lion-tailed Monkey, for one of our most distinctive macaques and who referred to our langurs and macaques, indiscriminately, by the term ‘baboon’ when no baboon is found in India? The British ‘gentleman sportsman’ was responsible for all these misnomers, and, besides, for some quite wretched natural history.
To return to those chital, when does one use the term ‘hind’ and when ‘doe’? Is it a question of the kind of animal described, i.e. would one always say ‘doe’ of the female of all antelopes and ‘hind’ of the female of all deer?
The rule is quite simple, and, like many rules, subject to sudden exceptions. To some extent the kind of beast described seems to determine the term, but size also plays an important part. It is generally true to say, of Indian antelopes, that the male is the ‘buck’, the female ‘doe’ and the young ‘kids’ (though ‘fawns’ would also pass muster), but when we speak of our one large antelope, the nilgai, the size and somewhat bovine looks of the animal bar these terms—we use ‘bull’, ‘cow’ and ‘calves’ instead. ‘Stag’, ‘hind’ and ‘fawn’ are safe for all our deer except the very smallest. Speaking of the Mouse Deer, and sometimes of the Barking Deer, we use the terms ‘buck’ and ‘doe’—note that in such small deer the males are either hornless or have small horns which cannot possibly be termed ‘antlers’, even by the imaginative.
For all really large animals, whether bovine or not, ‘bull’, ‘cow’ and ‘calf’ would apply—to whales, elephants and rhinos, for example. Luckily the distinction between the sexes and between young and adult specimens is clear and easy when writing or speaking of the greater cats and the dog family. However, one cannot lay down hard and fast rules with regard to such things, in view of the exuberance of some English and American gentlemen sportsmen—one of these, in a recent book, refers to a ‘bull hyena’!
1958
54
A Red Test for the Young
Recently I had occasion to ask a number of young university graduates, at an interview, a question which I thought a fair test of their knowledge of India and general awareness. I asked them to name two red-flowered trees, or at least one.
Mind you, it was not a tricky question. We have no less than seven common red-flowered trees, the Flame of the Forest or palas (Butea monosperma); the Indian coral tree (Erythrina indica) and its cousins, including the dadap of tea plantations; the Asoka (Saraca indica); the magnificent red silk cotton (Salmalia malabarica); the gulmohur (Delonix regia); the tulip tree (Spathodea campanulata); and the frangipani (Plumeria rubra, and varieties)—the first four are native to India and the rest exotics now common here. We have besides, quite a few other red-flowered trees, such as species of Sterculia, that are less common.
Well, I asked this question as they came up, one after another, and after a while I grew introspective. Am I, I asked myself, too biased by my preoccupation with the flora and fauna of our country, and asking too technical or difficult a question of these bright young people? On reflection it seemed to me that any country bumpkin, asked the same question, would have named the Indian silk cotton unhesitatingly, and I asked my question again with renewed hope. However, I added a rider to it which I felt would help.
The rider was a bit of factual information—that the rose was not a tree. The first few candidates had triumphantly named the rose, and I felt it would save time all round to eliminate it straightaway.
Occasionally, when my question flummoxed them, I asked if they could name one yellow-flowered tree instead—the lovely Indian laburnum and other casias; the babul (Acacia arabica); the portia or umbrella tree (Thespesia acutiloba); and the opulentflowered yellow silk cotton (Cochlospermum gossypium) among native trees; and the rusty shield bearer or copper pod (Peltophorum roxburghii) among exotics, all have conspicuous yellow flowers, and are familiar trees. I had no better luck.
One of my victims (he was one among the four who had graduated in botany) named the Indian coral tree: three named the gulmohur which, however, they called the Flame of the Forest; one named the rain tree (Enterolobium saman) which has pink and not red flowers, but it was near enough to please me.
One said he could not give me the English name of a yellowflowered tree but knew its name in Telugu (vernacular tree names were allowed, of course) and then went on to describe what I felt sure was the mohwa, which is white-flowered.
I could not keep an accurate count as my question was purely an incidental one, but out of some thirty graduates, only four really gave any answer which could be called correct, and most of them did not answer it at all. Not one named two red-flowered trees.
I asked many candidates at this interview an easier question, the name of an exclusively Indian animal—I asked this mostly of those to whom I did not address my floral question. In assessing the peculiarly Indian claims of any animal, a slight overlapping of distribution into a neighbouring country in a distinct race is to be ignored. Leaving out reptiles and birds, and mammals like the lion-tailed macaque which only naturalists are likely to know, we have well over a dozen mammals, none of them rare, though some are rather local in their range, which are peculiarly Indian: the bonnet monkey; the common langur and the Nil
giri langur; the Asiatic lion today; the charming little Indian fox (Vulpes bengalensis) which is by no means uncommon; the sloth bear (it extends to Ceylon in a race); the striped palm squirrels; Indian black-naped hares (very common); the wild buffalo; the Nilgiri tahr; the chinkara; the blackbuck; the chowsingha or four-horned antelope; the nilgai; the swamp deer or barasingha and the chital—I would also include all races of village buffaloes, and all breeds of Indian humped cattle in this list, though both have now been exported to many other countries.
In due course I felt the need to add a rider to this question as well—that the Royal Bengal Tiger was not a distinct species of Panthera tigris or even a recognized race, and that it was to be found in many other countries besides India. Even with this rider, no one gave me the answer to my question, among those that tried to.
One tough customer neatly turned the tables on me by claiming that ‘the Indian black ant’ was exclusively Indian—I do not know whether or not the large black ant of the countryside is peculiar to India, and it is certainly an animal within the meaning of the act (in this case, the Indian Penal Code!).
The question now is this: is there something radically wrong with the education and culture of our young men and women that they should not know the answers to these reasonable questions, or is it that I have become a monomaniac and am therefore unable to perceive how unfair my questions are?
1967
55
Nature Study
Istill have vivid recollections of the terrible nature-science classes we had when I was at school. All the nature we saw was confined to a grey book, full of grim words and execrable, black-and-white illustrations, and a blackboard. Our teacher, a gifted impressionist, would draw bones and stomachs and the innards of men and animals on that blackboard in coloured chalk—and that was nature-science. He told us that the blood got flamelessly burnt in our lungs, like rusting iron, and that a cow’s stomach is divided into compartments. The only time that nature had a chance to enter those gruesome classes was when some of us were asked to go out, and catch a butterfly for a demonstration. At the end of the forty-minute period the butterfly-hunters returned, flushed and breathing hard from a game they had played on the road, and reported that no butterfly was to be seen in or around school. We were, very naturally, believed.
I know that nowadays they try to make nature more objective, and a trifle less stale and weary, in schools, especially in primary schools, but the approach is still the same. The plan of study, which graduates from Nature Study in primary schools through Elementary Science in high schools to Natural Science in colleges, follows what is known as the Concentric System. The idea behind it is to teach more and more of the same thing as the faculties of the young student develop, an excellent plan, no doubt. The first year the child learns that the cow has four legs (quadruped), gives us milk, and eats grass (herbivore). The next year, may be, there is a lesson on milk and another on how the cow is a Mammal. And in Form IV the young naturalist learns how and why the cow chews cud (ruminant), and that its stomach is cut up into compartments. If you follow the cow carefully through the syllabus, as I have done, you will find that that is all you learn about a cow in school. There is nothing about glue or leather or cheese, you do not hear of the relations of the cow, even its nearest ones, what prejudices and fancies a cow has or on what it thrives best. In fact, except that the cow is such a common animal that you can’t escape seeing it, you would have had all your cow from a book and on the Concentric System. Nature comes to the class room, in selected bits and on the instalment plan. Oh yes, there are experiments, demonstrations and specimens. Properly used they can be invaluable aids to teaching, but they are only that, and often not even that because they are not properly used. Let us be honest, rather than polite. There is never any experimental work in school—only set demonstrations, based on the Concentric System. Early in his life the scholar makes his acquaintance with the bean seed and its germination, and very naturally concludes that all seeds have fleshy cotyledons, are exalbuminous, and epigeal in their germination. The ‘experiment’ is never prolonged to show the need for light, or soil salts, once the leaves are out. They do not take you out to a field of seedlings to study germination, or tell you why the farmer ploughs his lands. They teach about metamorphosis, but I wonder how many schoolboys have watched a caterpillar pass through the chrysalis stage, or tadpoles grow into frogs. All they teach is a prescribed text by mastering which you can pass examinations.
If you want to know how inhibiting these methods can be, you have only to meet a number of educated young men and women. The average educated adult knows little or nothing of the teeming plant and animal life of the country, and cares less. Livestock does not interest him, and the world is to him a place which holds only human beings. He can never make friends with a hill or a dog, and if he has no one to talk to, no book to read, and no gadget to turn and unturn, he is quite lost. School education is solidly to blame for all this—children are not taught to know and appreciate nature at first hand, only terms and explanations from books. They think of nature as something necessary for passing examinations, as something unfortunately necessary. And when they are grown they are unaware that they have missed half the joy of life.
The school approach to nature study is fundamentally unsound. It is based on the theory that one must proceed from elementary, understandable things. There is simplification and selection, and logical, reasoned steps guide the approach. But the fact is that nature is not simple, logical and reasoned—thank God it is not. There is no need to fully understand anything, in all its structure and complexity, to be alive to its charm. Systematic knowledge, morphology, anatomy, physiology all are essential to the study of natural science, especially of advanced classes, but the stress should not lie solely on structure and function, right from the beginning and all along. What makes living things fascinating is their behaviour, not their anatomy. Children in primary schools should get to know the common wild plants and birds of the locality; birds because they are so easily watched. They should learn, a little later perhaps, the stories of the domestic animals. They should be taken out to see nature for themselves, and be given pleasant books, with gay, coloured illustrations, telling them about these things. The coloured illustrations are costly, but they are vitally important. Children love them, and will readily interest themselves in any text if it is free from morals and illustrated in colour. That may seem a faddist’s view; show me the child who can resist the Pete Castor series of animal books and I accept defeat.
It is in high schools, however, that nature study can be made really interesting and worthwhile. Occupation and instruction, without dullness, can be provided by giving the students a plot of ground for growing things in—not a bed for the bean seed only, but a miniature market garden. I am convinced that if the school could go to the trouble, and trifling expense, of maintaining a poultry-run, a goat-pen (not too near the miniature garden) and a pigeon-loft (pigeon post could be made a regular part of the training of the older scouts), and a middle-sized school dog, the scholars would acquire virtues and knowledge that a whole board of teachers cannot help them to get. There must be variety and choice in such matters, of course, and they would have to be extracurricular. More than all these, regular naturestudy outings, supplemented with lessons in field identification and methods of observation, will help to develop a keen, live interest in nature. Obviously, these outings and classes would also be extracurricular—one never knows beforehand what one might see when setting out, and much of the value of such study lies in its being as per no set plan. Whoever is in charge of these classes must have a genuine enthusiasm for nature study and be utterly honest. Again and again he will come across things that puzzle him, and there will be questions to which he does not know the answers: if he is an observant man, he will learn quite as much as the students. And he must realize that there must not be that insistence and forcing in these outings that one associates with curricular classes. Too much dis
cipline, in nature study, tempts the students to dishonest methods, and an approach that is not absolutely truthful (to the extent of one’s perceptions) is as worthless and hypocritical as the sentimental, sloppy approach. The importance of this was brought home to me in an unforgettable way, some years ago, when I was allowed to try out my methods in a school. We were collecting material for the school exhibition, and some of my trusted lieutenants had been deputed to procure birds’ nests for a section of the show. All sorts of nests came in, including the nests of a sybarite tree-rat, and it was heartening to see the enthusiasm of the boys. But one of them seemed unwilling, and he could produce nothing but a succession of sparrows’ nests. Now, there is a limit to the number of nests of the Common House Sparrow that one can use in an exhibition, and I lectured that boy severely on laziness, how everyone should pull his weight in a joint effort, duty and similar topics. By evening he returned, staggering beneath the weight of a ponderous nest wedged in the fork of an enormous green branch. I was completely flummoxed, to put things mildly for I could not imagine what sort of fowl, barring the Roc of Sinbad the Sailor, could have built that nest, and the Roc as everyone knows, builds no nest but rears its brood on the edge of a precipice. There was a neat symmetry, geometrical pattern, and tidiness about that nest that I could associate with no large bird. I asked questions. There were evasive answers. Finally I took the nest to pieces, and beneath an underlay of jowar stalk I came across indisputable evidence of the identity of the nest-builder—there were stout twigs at the foundation, firmly lashed into place with string, and reef-knots. Yes, overmuch discipline should be avoided in nature-study classes: it tends to defeat itself.
1947
W
Wombat: Burrowing herbivorous marsupial of genus Phascolomys, native to S. Australia and Tasmania, with thick, heavy body, short legs, rudimentary tail, and general resemblance to small bear.