220 BOMBAY DUCKS 
Now, in a race between a koel and a crow the latter 
has about as much chance of winning as a cart-horse 
would have if pittied against a Derby winner. The 
koel, however, is content to keep just ahead of his 
corvine pursuers; thus he lures them from the nest, 
and meanwhile his mate is placing her egg in it. When 
the male bird hears his wife’s voice he knows that the 
fell deed is done, and so puts on a spurt and leaves his 
pursuers far behind, screaming as he disappears from 
view: “ Get back to the nest, you blockheads, the eggs 
are getting cold!” 
The crows realize that this is really their most 
sensible course. On their return they fail to recognize 
the prank which has been played upon them; and so 
hatch out the strange egg along with their own. But 
the curious thing is that when the young koel is 
hatched, its foster-parents do not wring its neck, but 
tend it most carefully. 
Birds, when sitting on their eggs or looking after 
their young, are mere automatons, creatures of instinct. 
At this period they seem to cast intelligence to the 
wind, and to obey implicitly the promptings of instinct. 
Instinct teaches a bird to feed all the young in its 
nest without questioning their origin. We may thus 
account for the care which the crow parents lavish upon 
their koel foster-children. 
But we have yet to overcome a further difficulty. 
How is it that when the young koels first begin to fend 
for themselves they are not set upon by the strange 
crows of the neighbourhood and devoured? A crow, 
as a rule, never loses an opportunity of attacking a 
