320 JOURNAL, BOMBA Y NA TUBAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol X. 



recorded, of Lyncornis, nor of Batrachostomus, They are not familiar 

 birds to the eye, being night-flyers ; but the note of two species (both 

 of Bombay) is often heard at night and has given them the name of 

 " ice-birds," resembling the sound of " ducks and drakes " made upon 

 the ice by little boys with " chuckle stanes." 



The nest order is that of the Trogones with only one family, and in 

 India only one genus, of which we have only one species, Harpactes 

 fasciatus, the " ugly duckling " of a group containing several very 

 highly-coloured birds. The eighth order are the Coccyges ; with 

 two families of which we have only one —the Cuculidce. The true 

 cuckoos, who head the list, are well known as perhaps the worst con- 

 ducted of all birds ; their matrimonial alliances are, at the best, 

 ephemeral, the maternal affections are unknown, and all that a young 

 cuckoo gets from either parent is the inheritance of a hideously 

 unscrupulous talent for throwing his poor little foster-brethren out of 

 their own nest. The fact that such a race of birds exists, and seems 

 likely long to exist, is a distressing proof of the distance by which 

 even the parental instinct of the highest birds is separated from reason. 

 That most birds will try to mob cuckoos is true, but this seems to 

 be due only to their finding the latter skulking about nests, and in 

 some cases to their mistaking the cuckoos for hawks. None of 

 the victims seems to be capable of telling a cuckoo's egg or 

 young from their own, or of resenting the changelings' murderous 

 evictions. Mr. Blanford furnishes one crumb of comfort in the assur- 

 ance that sometimes two heu-euckoos lay eggs in one nest of other 

 birds, in which case (the right heirs being first got rid of) the bigger 

 young cuckoo pitches the lesser after them ; so he, at any rate, 

 gets his deserts. He tells us further that one cuckoo did once hatch 

 her own egg and fed her own baby (referring to ' Ibis,' 1889, p. 219). 

 As there is little prospect of her finding imitators, it is recommended to 

 all good men to shoot cuckoos at sight. The eggs, he says, are laid on 

 the ground ; and then conveyed by the mother " in her mouth to the 

 nest (of another bird) selected." 



We are cursed with several cuckoos, and firstly with the typical 

 European bird, Cuculus canorus. This vermin, indeed, is not commonly 

 found in our province in the breeding season — May and June, but 

 Mr. Blanford shows its occurrence in latitudes as low at that season, 



