56 TALKS ABOUT BIRDS 



but really there are very many kinds of 

 cuckoos, though, as they mostly live in the 

 tropics, and are very seldom brought over 

 here alive, they are little known to people who 

 have not been abroad. 



But those who live in India know one of 

 them, at all events, very well ; this is the koel, 

 or black cuckoo, a bigger bird than ours. 

 Only the cock is black, the hen being speckly 

 brown, rather like a hen pheasant. This bird 

 lives mostly on fruit, not on insects and 

 worms like our cuckoo, and it lays its eggs in 

 the nests of crows. This, of course, is a very 

 different matter from placing the eggs in the 

 nests of little helpless birds as the common 

 cuckoo does, for the crows, although they are 

 cowardly birds, are bigger and stronger than 

 the koel, and do their best to hunt it to death 

 when it appears. Fortunately the koel can 

 fly much faster than the crows, and her mate 

 helps her by leading them away after him 

 while she slips to the nest and lays her egg 

 there. My friend Mr. D. Dewar has very 

 carefully studied the habits of the koel and the 

 Indian crow, and he finds that the young koel 

 does not try to throw the young crows out of 



