An Honest Cuckoo 



with me, and if it had had a mate would cer- 

 tainly, I think, have bred ; but I was never sure 

 of the sex. 



Jerdon was of the opinion that these barred 

 young birds were the females, and those more 

 closely resembling the adult the males ; but I am 

 inclined to doubt this. In the first place, when 

 two or three nestlings, evidently representing 

 broods, were brought into the market together, 

 they would all be of one or the other type, never 

 mixed ; and it seems curious that the broods 

 should be always of one sex, though a more ex- 

 tended experience than mine might have proved 

 that the two types occur together. Moreover, 

 the unbarred young, when reared, were more 

 different from the barred ones than a mere sex- 

 difference would seem to warrant ; they were 

 much less tame in disposition, inclined to hop in 

 their gait as well as to walk, and had shorter legs 

 and longer tails. Lastly, we had a skin of a 

 nestling in the Indian Museum which had the 

 full adult plumage, thus presenting a still further 

 variation in the same direction. 



I must thus leave to Anglo- Indian naturalists 

 the task of working out the meaning of these 

 curious variations of one of the commonest birds 

 in India ; it can only be done, I think, by rearing 

 several and keeping them till they have moulted 

 into adult plumage. 



i57 



