EUDTXAMIS. 393 



pale dirty green, much blotched with reddish brown. Had but 

 one egg brought, and the man reported four Crow's eggs in the 

 same nest." 



Elsewhere I have said, writing from Bareilly : — " As we stood 

 waiting for the eggs of the King-Crow to be brought us, a speckled 

 female Coel suddenly emtn-ged from a gi-oup of maugo-lrees in our 

 own compouiul. pursued byse\ei'al Crows. The Ccel is a parasitic 

 Cuckoo, famous in Indian song as the harbinger of that glad rainy 

 season, when, to quote the Indian poet, the sun-parched widowed 

 earth puts oif her withered, dust-soiled weeds, and, soon to become 

 the joyfid mother of autumn's harvests, dons a fresh bridal robe 

 of green. Throughout the rains the loud whistled cry, ' who are 

 you ? ' rings through e^ery copse, and the Coel has from very early 

 times been as great a fa\ourite with tlie [)eo|)le of Hindustan as ever 

 the Cuckoo was with us. AV'heii we came to inspect the clump of 

 mango-trees out of w hich the angry Crows had come, we found in 

 them no less than seven of their nests, and in two of these dis- 

 covered unmistakable eggs of the Coel. Did these two both belong 

 to the fugitive female disco^ei'ed when for the third time she made 

 the attempt? Were they the eggs of sister adventuresses, who 

 had put her up to the locality as one in which business was likely 

 to be done? 1 confess I am not deep enough in the secrets of 

 the mottled ladies, whom respectable Crow matrons doubtless look 

 upon as the worst of ' social evils," to answer these questions, hvt 

 about the eggs there could be ' no deception.' '' 



Oue curious fact remains to be noticed. I have ne\er seen 

 Crows feeding fully fledged Coels out of the nest, whereas I have 

 repeatedly watched adult female Coels feeding young ones of their 

 own species. I am pretty neai-ly convinced that after laying their 

 eggs tlie females keep somewhereabout the locality and take charge 

 of the young directly they can lea\e the nest ; but the difficulty is 

 that, while from dissection I am couA'inced that they lay more than 

 one egg, I never saw more than one young one in charge of an old 

 female. Common as the bird is, and much attention as I have 

 paid to their habits diu-ing the breeding-season, there is much still 

 to be ascertained in regard to their social economy. 



The late Mr. A. Anderson remarked that Dr. Jerdon " is correct 

 in stating that the nest of the common Crow {Corvii^ $plende})ft) 

 is the one almost exclusively used as a nursery for the foundlings ; 

 this however, not because the Coel can be said to haA e any par- 

 tiality for this Crow in particulai'. but because the other species {C\ 

 (■iihninatus) does not lay sinudtaneously with herself. I firmly 

 believe that if both species nested at the same time, they would 

 be equall}' in demand as foster-parents. G. cidminatus lays, as 

 a rule, in February and Mai'ch ; and I haAe sometimes, thougli 

 rarely, seen them do so as late as May and June : C. sphyuhns, 

 on the other hand, does not generally connuence to build till June, 

 which siuts the Coel to a nicety." 



On the 27th May he found a nest containing " three Coel's ami 

 four ejro-s of C. cuhninatus. This nest was built in a tree at mv 



