298 Wonders of the Bird World 



happens to be ill and confined to his bed, when the Koel 

 keeps up his irritating song all day in the compound. 



The male Koel is entirely black, but the female is quite 

 differently coloured, being black above and whitish or 

 rufous below, with bars of rufous or spots of white on the 

 back, and streaks and bars of black on the under surface. 

 Hence it can be seen at once that she is in every way 

 different from her black mate in colour. 



The majority of Cuckoos have young which do not differ 

 materially from the adults in their colouration. Our own 

 Ciiculus canonis is an exception, like the rest of the true 

 Cuckoos, inasmuch as the young bird is absolutely different 

 in pattern of plumage from the adults, being dark where 

 they are light grey, and mottled where they are uniform. 

 But if the Koels followed the general rule of the Family, 

 and their young took on the plumage of the female, mark 

 what would be the result — simply disaster to the species. 

 The Koel of Palawan (Eudynamis orientalis) is parasitic 

 on a Myna [Eidabcs javanensis). Now this Myna belongs 

 to a group of eastern Starlings. It is a large and powerful 

 bird, approaching our Jackdaw in size, and, like our own 

 Starling, not a bit of a fool ! Thus, let us suppose that the 

 female Koel has successfully planted her egg in the nest- 

 hole of the Myna, and that the latter has not perceived the 

 fraud, and has duly hatched out the young Koel. If the 

 latter, after the manner of some Cuckoos, developed a 

 plumage like its mother's, the Myna would speedily 

 perceive among its own offspring a rufous and barred 

 individual, unlike the beautiful black youngsters which it 

 is the habit of a mother Myna to admire. After a short 

 consultation with her husband, the chances are that the 

 Koel would be hauled out and killed at once. But in this 

 instance, the young Koel does not don the plumage of its 

 mother, when its feathers begin to sprout, but is perfectly 

 black like its father, and thereby the Myna apparently 



