226 BOMBAY DUCKS 



safe for the sportsman to lay his money on either the 

 little insect or the great fowl. The grasshopper often 

 doubles, and is of course followed by the coucal, which, 

 when making a sharp turn, often expands one wing, 

 using it as a steering apparatus. The bird is said also 

 to eat lizards and snakes. He possibly eats small 

 frogs, for I have often seen crow- pheasants wading in 

 water. 



The nest is an interesting object. It is usually 

 situated in the midst of some impenetrable thicket, for 

 a coucal dislikes having his family affairs pryed into. 

 It is a great structure, about the size of a football, 

 composed chiefly of sticks. It is roofed in and has the 

 entrance at the side. In spite of its size, it is usually 

 so well concealed that it is not an easy thing to 

 discover. Sometimes, when one knows for certain that 

 there is a nest in a thicket, it is impossible to find that 

 nest without pulling down the greater part of the bush 

 round about it. I once spent a couple of hours looking 

 in vain for a nest which I knew to be in a thick hedge ; 

 then I told off two peons to find it without doing 

 any damage to the hedge. They professed their 

 inability to discover it, but I do not believe they made 

 very sustained efforts to find it ; I rather fancy they 

 regarded the duty as beneath the dignity of their 

 position ! Whether this was so or not, it is certain that 

 the crow-pheasant is an adept at concealing his home. 



The coucal is usually described in works on natural 

 history as a shy bird. It is certainly exceedingly shy 

 in Madras, much more so than it is in Northern India. 

 The reason of this difference in behaviour is not ap- 



