12 JUNGLE FOLK 



Its call is a very distinctive, sonorous Whoot, whooi, 

 whoot, and, as the bird habitually calls a httle before 

 dawn in the early part of the hot weather, its voice is 

 doubtless often attributed to some species of owl. 



The nest is, we are told, globular in shape, con- 

 siderably larger than a football, composed of twigs and 

 grass and lined with dried leaves. The entrance con- 

 sists of an aperture at one side. I must confess that 

 I have not yet seen any of the creature's nests. I have 

 located several, but each one of these has been placed 

 in the midst of a dense thicket, which, in its turn, has 

 been situated in the compound of one of my neighbours. 

 The only way of bringing a nest built in such a position 

 to human view is by pulling down the greater part of 

 the thicket. This operation is not feasible when the 

 thicket in question happens to be in the garden of 

 a neighbour. 



Large though the nest is, it is not sufficiently com- 

 modious to admit the whole of the bird, so that the 

 long tail of the sitting crow-pheasant projects outside 

 the nest. " When in this position," writes Hume, " the 

 bird is about as defenceless as the traditional ostrich 

 which hid its head in the sand." This remark would 

 certainly be justified were the crow-pheasant to build 

 its nest in mid-desert, but I fail to see how it applies 

 when the nest is in the middle of a thicket into which 

 no crow or other creature with tail-pulling propensities 

 is hkely to penetrate. " In Australia," continues Hume, 

 " the coucal manages these things far better. There, 

 we are told, ' The nest, which is placed in the midst of a 

 tuft of grass, is of a large size, composed of dried grasses, 



