536 CLASS AVES. 



posed to be a most efficacious remedy in delirium and mad- 

 ness. Its fat has also been prescribed as a prevention to the 

 falling off of the hair ; and, perhaps, it deserves this reputa- 

 tion, as Avell as most of the nostrums, of every variety of 

 sonorous appellation, with which fools and coxcombs are 

 gulled by the swindling empirics of this metropolis. 



The opposite is a figure of a cuckow found by Captain 

 Flinders, on the North Coast of New Holland, during his 

 voyage of discovery. The bill is stout, and hom-coloured ; 

 crown of the head, dusky-clay colour ; the under parts of 

 the body, pale-buif ; wings, mixed with blackish and buff- 

 colour ; over the eye, a broad streak of buff-colour ; behind 

 the eye, a streak of black ; legs, horn-colour ; length, about 

 fifteen inches. 



The Sacred Cuckow (Cuculus Honoratus) owes its name 

 to the compass and melody of its voice. It is held in the 

 highest veneration throughout the Indian Peninsula. It 

 lives most generally in small flocks, and prefers unfrequented 

 and well wooded places. These birds fly by springs, or hover- 

 ing, but to very short distances. Insects are their usual food. 

 The CouAS (called Coulicous by M. Vieillot,) are strongly 

 distinguished from the cuckows by their mode of propagation 

 — which indicates a different internal organization. They 

 construct a nest either in the hollow of a tree, or on the 

 branches. They hatch their eggs, and rear their young ones. 

 There are some, indeed, classed with the last sub-genus, that 

 do the same ; but their right to be so classed, is very doubt- 

 ful. The difference in the tarsi and wings, the first being 

 denuded of feathers, and longer, and the latter being shorter 

 and more rounded in the couas, cannot be considered, in a 

 natural method, as characters of so important a kind as that 

 which belongs to the multiplication of the species. 



Some of these birds, distinguished by M Vieillot, under 

 his genus coccyxus, belong to INIadagascar ; one to New 

 Holland ; but for the most part they are natives of America* 



