CUCKOOS 71 



" crow-pheasant," but when alarmed, and especially 

 when pursued by infuriated crows, they can fly very 

 rapidly, although still in a fluttering fashion, and seem- 

 ing to drag their long tails after them with a certain 

 degree of effort. 



Common hawk-cuckoos, Hierococcyx varius, 1 do 

 not seem to abound so much in the neighbourhood of 

 Calcutta as they do in many other parts of India, and 

 the numbers that are present vary very considerably 

 from year to year. There is hardly any season at 

 which their characteristic notes may not occasionally 

 be heard ; but, as a rule, it is during the rainy months 

 that they are most frequent, so that the designation 

 "hot-weather-bird," that is often applied to the 

 species in other parts of the country, is hardly 

 applicable to it in Calcutta, where, if any birds 

 deserve the name, it is either the ko'il or the common 

 small barbet. They have two very distinct calls. 

 The first of these, and that from which their common 

 name of " brain-fever-bird " is derived, corresponds 

 in function with the " nest-note " of the ko'ils, and 

 consists of a highly pitched, trisyllabic cry, repeated 

 many times in ascending semitones until one begins 

 to think, as one sometimes does when a Buddhist is 

 repeating his ordinary formula of prayer, that the 

 performer must surely burst. The other either begins 

 with one or two of the trisyllabic utterances, and then 

 passes on into a volley of single descending notes, or 



1 They are a little larger than the common European cuckoo. 



