Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1892-01-16
HE WILL EAT ANYTHING.



From Longmans Masazine
During the months that the adjutant lives il
Calcutta it is interesting to watch him. Heap
points himself chief scavenger of a certain
house or houses and has first choice of the con
tents OF the dust bins which each househo!de,
Is required to deposit outside his gate at day
break, till the conservancy carts re move them
The adjutants operation may be more easily
imagined than described.
Whilst the pariah dogs Of the quarter and @
bevy OF attendant crows look On till his lord
ship is satisfied with the BONES bouches tina;
ne picks out with his sharp beak, losses into
the air, swallows. until his stomach becomes SO
full that he is obliged to take a little walk
round and let matters settle themselves l re-
Sret that l have been recently deprived OF a
story about the voracity of adjutants that had
been believed by me for many years. had
been told that Mr. II. had seen an adjutant
walk quietly along a wall to a sleeping cat.
winch 1t pierced with its beak, tossed up in the
air and caught in its mouth.
But recently met Mr.. R., and he tells me
tnat ne did not see the adjutant swallow
,he cat, but that his friend Mr.. S. said that
ne had seen an adjutant pick up and swal-
low q live kitten. Now that is a very
diherent thing and is more likely to be true
IMAM the story about the cat. For a kitten
nave often seen the adjutants catch and swal-
low I'VE rats At the stables of the house of
friend OF mine the native servants used
almost every night to catch live rats in
traps.
when the morning came the men used to
carry the traps out on the open maidaun, at
tehded by three or four adjutants. who knew
very We'll what treat was in store for them.
WIN our binoculars could see from the
mouse the poor rats lei loose and dash off at
tneif best pace toward the stables. But n grim
adJutant with his long strides and out
stretched wings soon overlook the rat tossed
MIN Ill the air and swallowed him. Occasion
any very smart rat would double under the
Leading adjutants legs; hut the rat had little
chance 10 escape, for if it evadeG pur-
suer II only ran into the month of another.
Inc ad)utant may be called a sacred bird;
put as tins eplthet might be misunderstood as
II IL applied to Hindoo mythology. must ex-
pam that he Is consecrated to municipal duty
ana Is sanctified by the protection of the NUM-
ciPai Jaw. ANY one who kills an adjutant in
Calcutta Is punishable by fire of a gold mohur
or 3Zs. never found this law in the statute
DOCKS any more than / ever saw that fabulous
com. the gold mohur, in its original gold But
there Is no English magistrate in Calcutta who
would hesitate to impose fine of gold mohur
On any one convicted Of killing an adjutant
Onc OF my old contemporaries in the old col
lege OF Fort William was SO fined, although he
hau Killed the adjutant in his fathers garden,
and MS father was one of the judges of the chief
court of justice.
There used to be a tradition that the British
soldiers In the barracks of Fort William once
blew up an adjutant by inducing it to swallow
u marrow bone i'll which there was a charge of
gunpowder and o slow-burning fuse, but
hardly believe it.
similar but perfectly true story was, how
ever, Wltnln my own cogniZance, and i: &C.
CURED at the Chinsurrah barracks when
the Old twenty-ninth regiment was quartered
there. Ihe soldiers after their dinner, got
TWO marrow bones and tied them together with
stout string about twenty yards long. The
marrow bones were then thrown out separately
TO TWO expeciant adju.ants. One bird seized
and swallowed the bone and the other bird
caught and got outside (as the Yankees say) of
the other bone
Inc two birds then flew up toward their
usual perches on the barrack roof but as they
new apart the string frightened, and as they
pulled against one another and neither would
part with his bone, they finally came Hopping
to the ground, to the great edification OF the
soldiers. When the two birds were on the
ground there was severe tug of war between
them, until at last the string broke and each of
them flew off triumphantly to digest the bone
ana The yards OF string attached to il at leisure