240 ANIMAL COLORATION. 



cooperi. Our own cuckoo, Cnculus canonis, is by no means 

 unlike a sparrow-hawk, and there are various rustic legends 

 based upon this likeness ; but the New Zealand cuckoo shows 

 a far more detailed similarity to the American hawk. Sir "W. 

 Buller says, " Not only has our cuckoo the general contour of 

 Cooper's sparrow-hawk, but the tear-shaped markings on the 

 under parts and the arrow-head bars on the femoral plumes 

 are exactly similar in both. The resemblance is carried still 

 further, in the beautifully banded tail and marginal wing- 

 coverts, and likewise in the distribution of colours and mark- 

 ings on the sides of the neck. On turning to Mr. Sharpe's 

 description of the young male of this species in his 

 catalogue of the Accipitres in the British Museum (p. 137), 

 it will be seen how many of the terms employed apply equally 

 to our Eudynamis, even to the general words " deep brown 

 above with a chocolate gloss, all the feathers of the upper 

 surface broadly edged with rufous." It might perhaps be 

 imagined that this resemblance, which is as striking as it is 

 useless to either bird, separated as they are by half the globe, 

 was exceeded in the case of some New Zealand bird of prey. 

 Sir Walter, however, says : " Beyond the general grouping of 

 the colours, there is nothing to remind us of our own Bush 

 hawk ; and that there is no great protective resemblance is 

 sufficiently manifested, from the fact that our cuckoo is perse- 

 cuted on everypossible occasion by the tits, which are timorous 

 enough in the presence of a hawk. 



The Cat Birds (Aeluredus) have a singular resemblance to the 

 green Barbets, and one species is actually called " buccoides " ; 

 but this resemblance is clearly not referable to mimicry, for the 

 distribution of the two groups does not coincide. Gould has 

 remarked upon the close similarity between Melicophila picata 

 and Pctroica bicolor, which are figured and described, in one of 



