Indian Cuculus Canortis. 2ig 



rarely ascending to 7,000 feet. It lays in May and 

 June, generally selecting the nests of Pratincola 

 maura and occasionally that of Pomatorhinus cry- 

 throgenys." ''■' 



Jerdon, indeed, does not think that any of the 

 Indian cuckooS really migrate from India. 



" I believe that none of the Indian species migrate 

 entirely from India; but they wander about a good 

 deal at different times, all the true cuckoos breeding 

 in the hills, some of them perhaps also in the plains. 

 After the breeding is over, they appear to scatter 

 themselves about a good deal over the whole country, 

 one or two only restricting their range to the limits 

 of the Himalayan forest. "t 



Clearly, therefore, these common cuckoos in India, 

 staying there till October, and laying in May and 

 June, have abundant leisure, even on the extended 

 time-table of Jenner, to do their own brooding, ten- 

 dence, and feeding of the young. And when we put 

 this alongside the fact that, at least one of the Indian 

 cuckoos is actually resident, and yet that these resi- 

 dent cuckoos are as persistently parasitic as the 

 migrants, it does seem as though Mr. Darwin had 

 absolutely failed to do the needful investigation and 

 reading here ; and in not doing so, he is all the more 

 blameworthy, and his conduct the more to be repro- 

 bated, that one of the finest observers and scientific 

 ornithologists had provided him with full warning not 

 implicitly to follow Jenner, as he so foohshly did. 

 This was Mr. Jerdon, who, in Birds of India, pub- 

 lisded in 1862, wrote as follows : 



* Hume's Birds of India, ii, p. 380. 

 ti, p. 321- 



