66 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN 



clever and wary. Hence the possession by the 

 male cuckoo of an insistent and distracting call is 

 not enough to give the female such a good chance 

 of doing her part, as it will where she has to deal 

 with birds of lower mental and physical power ; and 

 it has accordingly been reinforced by the evolution 

 of differences in plumage, serving to render the 

 one sex very conspicuous and the other protectively 

 obscure. The shining black plumage and bright 

 red eyes of the male koil are specially adapted to 

 attract attention in the sites he chooses to call 

 from, while the subdued greenish-grey tints and 

 white spots and bars of the feathering of the female 

 serve to make her almost invisible among the 

 broken lights and shades of the coverts in which 

 she lurks when awaiting a chance for depositing 

 her eggs. 



The male koil has three very distinct calls ; 

 the first "the nest-note" is the well-known one 

 from which the species derives its common name ; 

 the second is entirely different, and is constantly 

 uttered at dawn; and the third, which is common 

 to both sexes, consists of a torrent of ear-splitting 

 shrieks indicative of alarm. The name-call is 

 constantly to be heard during the earlier part of 

 the year, and specially from the end of January until 

 far on into the hot weather; or, in other words, 

 during the whole of the nesting-time of the crows, 

 but at other times it is almost entirely replaced by 



