CUCKOOS 75 



had recently arrived in the country, complained with 

 good reason of the evil flavour of a "pheasant" that 

 one of his chums had shot near a native village, and 

 had, much to the astonishment of the servants, 

 brought home to be cooked and partaken of as a 

 game-bird. " Crow-pheasants" differ from the 

 majority of their relatives, not merely physically, but 

 also morally, as they are not above building for 

 themselves, but construct nests, consisting of great 

 hollow masses of sticks, and lay their eggs in them. 

 The sites that they choose are usually thickets so 

 dense and impenetrable that, even when one is sure 

 of the presence of a nest, it is very difficult to detect 

 it. A pair of them once built in a great tangled 

 brake of Congea, quite close to my house, and were 

 constantly to be seen furtively conveying sticks and 

 rubbish into it, or heard hooting from its recesses ; 

 but although I often searched for the nest it was 

 always in vain, as in order to its discovery, it would 

 have been necessary to clear away so much of the 

 cover as to disfigure the plant permanently. 



It is only by luck that a near view of them is 

 to be obtained, as they are so well aware of their 

 incapacity for sustained flight as very rarely to 

 venture out into the open at any considerable 

 distance from cover. They certainly could not do so 

 without running serious risks, as their flight is a 

 pathetically rudimentary performance, and it is to 

 their power of rapid running and walking and a 



