PARASITIC HABITS OF THE INDIAN KOEL. 769 



additional koel's egg was found in the neat, so that it now contained two koel'a 

 eggs and one crow's egg. I naturally put myself the question : are both these 

 eggs laid by the same koel ? And I am inclined to think that they were. In 

 the first place the tree was isolated and at some distance from any other trees 

 in which crows were building. Secondly, the disappearance of the crow's egg 

 looked as though the koels were paying some attention to the nest. The third 

 and perhaps the most convincing reason was the nature of the koel's eggs. 

 Koel's eggs have an oily surface and it is accordingly difficult to mark them 

 with pencil ; these two, however, took the pencil more readily than most of the 

 other koel's eggs I have come across. Further, they were both of the same 

 shape and similarly marked. 



On the 18th the two koel's eggs and the crow's egg were still in the nest, but 

 on the 19th this last had disappeared, so that the nest now held only the two- 

 koel's eggs. For the reason given above I am inclined to think that the koel 

 removed this egg. I may add that later we came upon a crow's nest which 

 contained only two hard-set koel's eggs, and it is unlikely that any human being 

 had climbed up the lofty tree in which this nest was situated and removed the 

 crow's eggs that were in it when the koel visited it. 



No further eggs of either crow or koel were laid in this nest (No. VI), which 

 I continued to visit almost daily. C'n the 28th June one of the young koels 

 hatched out and on the 29th the second appeared. These two young koels 

 lived together in the nest quite amicably, and on July 20th they had both left 

 the nest and were sitting on a branch in the tree that contained it. 



I was then inclined to think that they were both females, as their plumage- 

 was much barred, but in one case the bars were white and in the other chest- 

 nut red. I shall return to this point later, when talking more particularly of 

 the plumage of the koel nestling. The observation of this nest shows that 

 more than one egg may be laid by the koel in the same nest, that the koel 

 does sometimes destroy the eggs it finds in the nest, and that the destruction 

 does not necessarily talce place at the same time as the TcoeV 's egg is laid. It also 

 shows that when there are two young koels in the same nest the stronger does 

 not eject the weaker (or at any rate does not always do so) as happens in the 

 case of the common cuckoo. I may add that there is no hollow in the back of 

 the koel nestling, and that it does not appear to be sensitive when brought 

 into contact with a foreign body or with another young bird. Neither koel 

 seemed to object in the least to having the other placed on top of it. 



Nest Numbek X. 



On the morning of June 22nd my climber told me that he had seen a crow 

 sitting in a nest outside the compound. I went to the tree and sent bim up 

 to ascertain what there was in it, as he had not been up before reporting to 

 me. While he was climbing up I noticed a broken crow's egg lying on the 

 ground nearly directly underneath the nest. This egg must have been 

 pitched, or have fallen, out very recently, since there was still uncoagulated 

 albumen in the shell, and the ants had not yet found it. 



