CUCKOOS. 3 



16 inches. Its note is described by Canon Tristram as kee-ow, kee-ou, and it has 



an alarm-note resembling the word cark, as well as a third note, like wurree, 



wurree. It is parasitic, like the members of the genus Cuculus, but does not 



victimise small birds like the true cuckoos, selecting the nests of crows and 



magpies, whose eggs bear a considerable resemblance to its own. The great spotted 



cuckoo often places two, or even four, of its eggs in a nest ; where the young 



cuckoos often live in peace with the offspring of the foster-parents, and, so far as is 



known, not attempting to eject the rightful owners. The Indian pied crested 



cuckoo (C. jacobinus) lays blue eggs, resembling in colour those of the babbling 



thrushes (Crateropus and Argya), in whose nests it places them. Apparently the 



young cuckoo ejects the rightful ownei^s, when the young are hatched, as the 



babblers are often seen in attendance on their parasitic dependents without any of 



their own young being of the party. Sometimes the cuckoo puts two of its eggs 



into a babbler's nest, and it is said to break some of the foster-parents' eggs to make 



room for its own. Colonel Butler says that when they discover a nest of a babbler, 



which does not suit them to lay in, the cuckoos invariably destroy the eggs already 



there by driving a hole into them with their bills, and sucking the contents. 



The six species of hawk-cuckoos are remarkable for their exact 

 SsLwk-Cuclsoos 



' resemblance in colour and flight to a sparrow-hawk, being grey birds 



with a good deal of rufous below, a large yellow eye, and a very broadly banded 

 tail. They lay white or greenish - blue eggs, and one species {Hierococcyx 

 sparveroides) is said to build its own nest and sit on the eggs. This fact has 

 been recorded in the Nilgiri Hills of Southern India, but in the Himalaya the bird 

 is stated to be parasitic on the babbling thrushes. 



While the hawk-cuckoos may be distinguished from the crested 

 cuckoos by the absence of a crest, the true cuckoos differ from them 

 hy the shape of the tail, in which the outer feathers are nearly of the same length 

 as the others, instead of decidedly shorter. Moreover, the tail-feathers lack the 

 transverse dark bars of the hawk-cuckoos. The genus is represented by ten 

 species, all very similar to one another, and hawk-like in coloration and appear- 

 ance, the old birds being grey while the young are more or less rufous, the 

 Oriental Sonnerat's cuckoo {Cuculus sonnerati) having, however, the plumage for 

 the most part rufous barred with black. Of the ten species, four are African, one 

 Australian, and the rest Indian. Their notes vary greatly, only one other species 

 besides the European having the "cuckoo" note from which the bird takes its 

 name, this being the South African cuckoo (C gularis), which has a note similar 

 to that of the common species, but more slowly uttered, and the first syllable not 

 in such a high key. The red-chested cuckoo of Africa (C. solitarius) has a 

 whistling note, on account of which it is known to the colonists at the Cape by the 

 name of Piet - mijn-vrouw, while the black cuckoo {C. damosus) is, as its Latin 

 name implies, a noisy bird, uttering a very loud, harsh note. The Indian cuckoo 

 (C. micropterus), has a note, which Mr. Oates renders as hho-kusha-kho, while the 

 Asiatic cuckoo (G. intermedins), on the other hand, has only a single note, a 

 guttural and hollow-sounding hoo, resembling the cry of the hoopoe. One of the 

 most interesting of all birds is the common cuckoo (C. canorus), not the least 

 remarkable feature in its conformation being its great similarity to a hawk, as not 



