125 A BIRD CALENDAR 



that, when seen from below, it looks like a 

 thrush with yellow legs. Its cries, however, are 

 not at all thrushlike. 



Many of the wire-tailed swallows, minivets 

 and white-browed fantail flycatchers bring 

 up a second brood during the rains. The 

 loud cheerful call of the last is heard very 

 frequently in July. 



Numbers of young bee-eaters are to be 

 seen hawking at insects ; they are distin- 

 guishable from adults by the dullness of the 

 plumage and the fact that the median tail 

 feathers are not prolonged as bristles. 



Very few crows emerge from the egg before 

 the ist of July, but, during the last week in 

 June, numbers of baby koels are hatched out. 

 The period of incubation for the koel's egg 

 is shorter than that of the crow, hence at the 

 outset the baby koel steals a march on his 

 foster-brothers. Koel nestlings, when they 

 first emerge from the egg, differ greatly in 

 appearance from baby crows. The skin of 

 the koel is black, that of crow is pink for the 

 first two days of its existence, but it grows 

 darker rapidly. The baby crow is the bigger 

 bird and has a larger mouth with fleshy sides. 

 The sides of the mouth of the young koel are 



