282 Rev. II. B. Tristram on the Ornithology of Palestine. 



ing with impunity, or whether a high moral sense of the 

 iniquity of any evasion of parental bird-duties impelled them, 

 I know not ; but their persecution was unrelenting, and a most 

 unquiet time the " Long-tails '' must have had of it. Their only 

 revenge seemed to be to keep up as incessant a chatter themselves. 

 When at peace, they were often to be seen hopping clumsily 

 about in the open places with an ungainly attitude, as though 

 their tails were rather too long, or at least as if they were not 

 mounted high enough on their legs. 



It was not till the 2nd of May that we obtained the Spotted 

 Cuckooes Q.^^, when four were brought to us with three Hooded 

 Crowds eggs from the same nest in a gorge near Mount Gilead. 

 One of the Cuckoo's eggs was fresh, two others ready to hatch, 

 and the fourth addled, while the Crow's eggs had been for some 

 time incubated. Thus it was evident that there must have been 

 long intervals between the deposition of the Cuckoo's eggs ; and 

 it is very possible that the Cuckoo may have deposited one egg 

 before any Crow's were laid. This is exactly in accordance with 

 Lord Lilford's experience in Spain, where he took the eggs of 

 Oxyluphus from a nest of the Common Magpie containing no 

 other eggs — and with the experience of our party in the Atlas, 

 where we repeatedly found several Cuckoo's eggs and none others 

 in the nest, and were thus led to believe that it incubated its own. 

 Of its parasitic habits there can now be no doubt. We did not 

 find its eggs in any other nests in Palestine. At the time of 

 its arrival the Jackdaws had hatched, and the Jays had not gene- 

 rally begun to breed j and, in accordance with the observations 

 of Messrs. Allen and Cochrane in Egypt, it prefers the nest of 

 Corvus comix when it can be had. On Mount Carmel, where it 

 is very common, and where the Hooded Crow is not, the eggs 

 will probably be found in the nests of Garrulus melanocephalus. 



The egg of Eudijnamis orientalis, the Indian Koel, bears, as 

 might be expected, considerable affinity to those of Oxijlophus, 

 and is generally deposited in the nest of Corvus splendens. Dr. 

 Jerdon states that it in general lays only one egg in each nest, 

 and mostly, but not always, destroys the eggs of the Crow at the 

 time of depositing its own. In both these habits Oxi/lophus 

 seems to differ from Eudi/namis. 



