MIMICRY. 461 



have twice been shot which presented some of the characters of 

 the American Gallinago wilsoni"* 



In Southern Africa the Anhinga (Plotus levaillanti, Licht.) 

 affords a mimicry which is apparently purposeless. Le Vaillant 

 himself, its discoverer, states : — " Indeed, there is no person 

 who, upon seeing the head and neck only of an Anhinga, while 

 the rest of the body is hid among the foliage of the tree on which 

 it is perched, would not take it for one of those serpents accus- 

 tomed to climb and reside in trees, and the mistake is so much 

 the easier, as all its tortuous motions singularly favour the 

 illusion. 1 '! This bird swims so low in the water that only its 

 neck is to be seen; and, from observations in Natal, Mr. Ayres 

 says that " in this position the bird might easily be taken, by 

 those unacquainted with it, for a Water-snake." J 



According to Dr. Bowdler Sharpe, one of the most interesting 

 of all birds is the Common Cuckoo (Cuculus canorus), not the 

 least remarkable feature in its conformation being its great 

 similarity to a Hawk, as not only shown by its colour and form, 

 but also by its mode of flight, and which is so marked that the 

 bird is always mobbed by smaller birds, as if it was really a 

 Hawk.§ Jefferies, who excelled as an observer, was clearly not 

 of this opinion, and he thus writes on the subject : — " The Cuckoo 

 flies so much like the Hawk, and so resembles it, as at the first 

 glance to be barely distinguishable ; but on watching more 

 closely it will be seen that the Cuckoo flies straight and level, 

 with a gentle fluttering of the wings, which never seem to come 

 forward ; so that in outline he resembles a crescent, the convex 

 side in front. His tail appears longer in proportion, and more 

 pointed ; his flight is like that of a very large Swallow flying 

 straight." || Again he remarks that birds " will pursue a Cuckoo 

 exactly as they will a Hawk," but adds : — " I will not say that 



:;: ' Trans. Norf. and Norw. Nat. Soc' vol. vi. pp. 241-243. 



f ' New Trav. Int. Parts Africa,' Engl, transl. vol. i. pp. 181-2. 



{ Cf. Layard's ' Birds of S. Africa,' Sharpe's edit. p. 783. 



§ ' Royal Nat. Hist.' vol. iv. p. 3. — It was a saying of Goethe that "there 

 was a time when the study of natural history was so much behindhand that 

 the opinion was universally spread that the Cuckoo was a Cuckoo only in 

 summer, but in winter a bird of prey." (' Conversations of Goethe,' Engl, 

 transl. new edit. p. 295.) 



|| ' Wild Life in a Southern County,' p. 252. 



