188 
POPULAR HISTORY OF BIRDS. 
to the ratel [Ratehts meUivoms), by discovering to it the 
nests of those bees which build in the ground^ and the 
quadruped is reported to share the plunder with the bird 
in a generous manner^ worthy of being recorded. 
Some cuckoos, such as the Zanclostomus viridirostrisy or 
Green-billed Cuckoo of India*^, frequent jungles and forests 
where bamboos abound, or where the trees are festooned by 
creepers, and tenanted by Ortlioptera of the Mantis and 
Locust families. These insects, with their resemblances to 
green leaves and the various parts of vegetation, green, dry, 
or dead, however they may escape the detection of passers- 
by, do not fail to attract the eyes of these birds, who ^^crunch 
and munch their hard legs and dry wings, but, like the 
Arabs and Hottentots, find soft bits in their bodies. The 
dark green colour of the upper parts of this bird and its 
green beak must often assist in enabling it to escape detec- 
tion, while the blue bare space round its eye gives the head 
an expression, which without it would be very tame. Many 
cuckoos are of green colours, and well fitted in consequence 
to escape detection, while others have the barred and speckled 
appearance of many hawks; indeed, our cuckoo, that 
beauteous stranger of the grove,^^ is sometimes taken for 
* Jerdon's ' lUustrations of Indian Ornithology/ pi. iii. 
