2i6 The World-Evidence. 



in fact, exactly like that described and sent by Miss 

 Cockburn. I accused the boys of having taken the 

 eggs from some other nest, but they maintained they 

 had not done so. I did not believe them then, but I 

 do now." '■'• 



So like are the eggs of the crested pied cuckoo of 

 India to those of the babblers (Argya and Crateropiis), 

 usually chosen, that they are hardly distinguishable. 

 In colour they are a spotless blue, darker or lighter in 

 different specimens, but all are highly glossy, and 

 closely resemble the eggs of Argya candafa, in whose 

 nest the cuckoos' eggs are laid. Col. W. Vincent 

 Legge says : 



" Even from the eggs of Crateropiis malcolnii, in 

 whose nests they are, in Upper India, most commonly 

 found, it is only by their somewhat diminutive size 

 and very round oval shape that they can be distin- 

 guished. This babbler itself, however, sometimes, I 

 believe, lays abnormally small eggs of this shape, so 

 that the only specimens I fully rely on are those that 

 have been taken out of the oviduct of the female. 

 These are very round ovals, recalling in shape the 

 eggs of the bee-eaters.'' t 



II and III. Colonel Butler, who paid particular 

 attention to the crested pied cuckoo of India {Coc- 

 cystes jacobiiiHs), says: 



" They seem to deposit their eggs in the babblers' 

 nests at any time, quite regardless of the condition 

 of the eggs of the nest in which they are laid. I 

 have often noticed, also, that when they discover a 

 nest which does not suit them to lay in, they almost 



* Hume, ii, p. 387. 

 "^ Hume, ii, p. 391. 



