710 
CATALOGUE. 
(Hind.), (Mimttsops Elengi)^ keeping almost exclusively to this tree 
while its fruit is ripe ; and at other seasons feeding on various berries, 
which are swallowed entire, and the large seeds of some of them 
ejected clean by the mouth. Though several may often be seen 
quietly feeding together, and sometimes in very conspicuous situa- 
tions, there is no association amongst them ; but each pursues its 
course independently, as we believe do all other CucuUnce. As their 
breeding-season approaches, however, about the commencement of 
the year, or a little before, the Coels become very noisy, and continue 
so for several months during the hot weather. The frequent utter- 
ance of the loud call-note of both sexes (a continuous repetition of 
the sound Icuil many times successively, with a liquid intonation of 
the I, and slight variations), though certainly not unmelodious when 
heard sufficiently far off, and in moderation, being thoroughly cucu- 
line in its tone, becomes wearisome from its monotonous reiteration 
at all hours of the day and night, more or less. The natives seem 
to admire it much, as they frequently cage this bird, feeding it almost 
entirely on boiled rice, with sometimes a plantain ! and its voice, when 
thus heard too close, becomes insufferable to European organs. The 
male Coel has also another cry (ho-d-o) corresponding to the cucJcoo 
note of Cuculus canorus, and which is delivered in like manner. The 
female, as before remarked, appears to deposit her eggs invariably in 
the nests of the true Corvi, and so abundantly, that we have known 
five or six Coels' eggs to be brought in together by a person who had 
been destroying crows' nests, each taken from a different one. The 
egg is certainly so often found alone, that there can be little doubt 
that the Coel destroys the eggs of the Crow at the time her own is 
deposited ; but it is doubtful whether the young Coel is endowed 
with the instinct of ejecting any companions it may have, and it 
• would seem that it has not that propensity ; but the fact remains to 
be systematically observed. Mr. Frith informs us that he has never 
found more than one Coel's egg in a nest, and, in his long experience, 
has only met with it in those of the two Indian Crows. He has 
repeatedly seen the common C. splendens attack and drive off the 
female Coel from its neighbourhood ; and in one instance observed 
the latter, while trying to escape the pursuit, dash itself against a 
pane of glass in an outhouse with so much force as to fall dead from 
the injury it received, the bill and fore-part of the head being quite 
smashed. The current native story is, that the Crow soon discovers 
the young Coel to be an interloper in its nest, and drives it away at 
an early age to find its own provender ; but this is certainly not the 
