BIRD LIVERIES AND THEIR MEANING. 33 



hawk. In such cases again the advantage gained 

 is quite apparent. "Wherever the cuckoos go 

 they are mobbed more or less violently by 

 all the smaller birds in the neighbourhood in 

 mistake for their hereditary enemy the hawk; 

 the tribe has an evil name in the bird world, 

 and not without some reason. Now, as we 

 shall show later, the cuckoo is a parasitic bird, 

 inasmuch as it leaves its offspring to the care 

 of strangers. To do this, the egg must be de- 

 posited in the nest of strangers, a rather diffi- 

 cult task when both of the intended foster 

 parents are busy near the nest. The male 

 cuckoo, therefore, seeks to drive, or draAV them 

 from home, by hovering near the nest hawk- 

 fashion, and at last inducing both parents to 

 leave home in an endeavour to chase the in- 

 truder away. By the time they have returned, 

 the fell purpose has been effected, the female 

 having slipped at once to the nest, and de- 

 posited her egg therein, to be hatched by the 

 unsuspecting dupes. The black cuckoo of India 

 is an even more wonderful instance of mimicry. 

 It has come to resemble the black drongo — a 

 kind of shrike — of the same locality so perfectly 

 as to make it difficult at first sight to distinguish 

 the two. The most curious part is, that the 

 drongo-shrike resents fiercely the approach of 

 any intruder near its nest, and yet it is in this 

 nest that the cuckoo lays its eg^, and it is by 

 the shrikes that the young cuckoo is reared. 

 The resemblance of the cuckoo to the shrike is 

 so close that the latter are quite deceived, and 

 mistake the cuckoo, when seen near the nest, 

 C 



