CHAPTER V 



STRANGE BED-FELLOWS 



{Cuckoos and Kingfishers) 



I CAN'T see for the life of me," said Ned one day, as 

 we were driving home after photographing a 

 Black-billed Cuckoo on her nest, "why in the 

 world the scientists have put the cuckoos and the king- 

 fishers together in the same group in their classification. 

 Why, anyone can see that they are as different as day 

 is from night. They both wear feathers and fly, and 

 that is about all the likeness I can see!" 



"We mustn't be hard on the poor scientists," I replied. 

 "They have a hard nut to crack. There are a number 

 of groups of species which are so different that they do 

 not know what to do with them. Formerly they just 

 gave it up and dumped them all into one miscellaneous 

 rag bag — Picarian or woodpecker-like birds they called 

 them, nicknaming them after the largest of the groups. 

 Now, however, they have found a better home for each 

 of the poor orphans, all except the unfortunate cuckoos 

 and kingfishers and some foreign tribes, so they fixed 

 up a smaller catch-all and named it after the cuckoos 

 — Coccyges, the Greek for cuckoos." 



77 



