INDIAN CUCKOOS 219 
bird, which, when seen during flight, looks like a 
slenderly built crow with an extra long tail. The 
female is a brown bird spotted with white. This species 
makes the crow do its nursemaid’s work for it. 
Needless to say, the Indian grey-necked crow is not 
the bird to be bluffed out of its nest by an ass in a 
lion’s skin in the shape of a hawk-like cuckoo. If the 
hen-cuckoo went up threateningly to a crow and tried 
to enter the nest, the crow would probably remark, 
“Very sorry, ma’am, full inside, try outside!” It there- 
fore becomes necessary for the koels to resort to artifice. 
The female, who is inconspicuously coloured, remains 
in the background, while the showy black cock bird 
swaggers up to the crow’s nest upon which the pair 
have designs. As a rule, the mere sight of an adult 
male koel drives a crow almost mad with fury. 
Nothing is commoner in India than the sight of a 
couple of crows chasing a koel. Indeed, the cuckoos 
are most unpopular with birds of all classes. They are 
the outlaws of the bird world; so they usually keep well 
to cover. When they do venture into the open they 
usually make a wild dash, like that of a boy from one 
“base” to another when playing at rounders. 
Upon this occasion, however, the koe] turns his un- 
popularity to account. If the sight of him is insufficient 
to provoke the crows at the nest to give chase, he begins 
to insult them. “Call that thing a nest?” he says 
mockingly. “Why, if I could not raise up a more re- 
spectable structure than that I would lay my eggs in 
some other bird’s nest!” The crows, of course, will 
not tolerate this kind of thing. They give chase. 
