SUMMER VISITORS loi 



She works hurriedly, for the operation is a dangerous 

 one. If she be caught on the nest the crows will try to 

 kill her and will, as hkely as not, succeed. The life 

 of the koel is by no means all beer and skittles. If the 

 hen koel gets away before the crows return they fail 

 to notice the strange egg, although it differs markedly 

 from their blue and yellow ones, being smaller and 

 olive green blotched with yellow. Nor do they seem 

 to miss their own eggs which are lying broken on the 

 ground beneath the nest. Sometimes the koel returns 

 and lays a second egg in the same nest, and destroys 

 all the legitimate eggs, for she can tell the difierence 

 between her eggs and those of the crow. Thus it 

 sometimes happens that the deluded crows rear up 

 only two koels. They never seem to notice the trick 

 that has been played upon them. Even when the 

 black-skinned young koels hatch out, the crows are 

 apparently unable to distinguish them from their own 

 pink-coloured young. 



The young koel invariably emerges from the egg 

 before his foster-brothers and thus begins life with a 

 start. He develops much more quickly than they do, 

 but, unlike the common cuckoo, ejects neither the other 

 eggs in the nest, nor the young birds as they hatch 

 out. He lives on good terms with the other occupants 

 of the nest, and when fledged, makes laudable if lu- 

 dicrous attempts to caw. 



The natives assert that the hen koel keeps an eye 

 on her offspring all the while they are in the crow's 

 nest and takes charge of them after they leave it. I 

 am almost certain that this is not so. 



