CUCKOOS AND THEIR MODELS 195 



coloured just like a barred grey fowl of ordinary 

 type and not of very high- standard of marking, 

 and that these are the grey species of the flightless 

 Kiwis or Apteryxes. The coincidence of such a 

 peculiar marking occurring in two such very 

 different birds as the flightless nocturnal New 

 Zealand Kiwi and varieties of our domestic fowls, 

 should prepare us for coincidences in coloration, 

 and help to make us sceptical about the survival 

 value of the curious resemblances to Hawks seen 

 in many of the Cuckoos. Some of these are cer- 

 tainly most extraordinary ; the Brain-fever-bird 

 or Hawk-Cuckoo of India above mentioned is extra- 

 ordinarily like the common Hawk of the Indian 

 plains known as the Shikra {Astur badius) and the 

 resemblance is not confined to the adult birds, but 

 extends to the young in first plumage, which are 

 differently clad from them in both mimic and 

 model. Another member of the genus Hiero- 

 coccyx to which this bird belongs, H. s-parverioides, 

 resembles another Sparrow-Hawk, the Besra {Acci- 

 fiter virgatus). 



The Hawk-like appearance of our own Cuckoo 

 has often been commented on, but it is very sketchy 

 compared with that of the above species, and the 

 young and adult stages do not resemble the same 

 kinds of Hawks, and the shape is less Sparrow-Hawk- 

 like. Moreover, the young of the non-parasitic 

 Crow-Pheasant is just as much like a Hawk, when of 

 the barred type (some resemble the black, chestnut- 

 winged adult, but are usually duller), as our young 



