Birds of Celebes: Cuculidae. 
209 
r” 
female, or of being different from either. Mr. Whitehead to account for it 
makes the following plausible suggestion: “the Thow‘ (E mindanensis) lays its 
eggs in the nest of the Yellow-mottled Mynah (Gracula javanensis). The young 
Cuckoo, being black, does not differ from the young Mynah, and so the deception 
is carried on until the young bird can take care of itself . Much has been 
written on the resemblance of the eggs of Cuckoos to those of the birds in 
whose nests they are placed, and with good reason; but mimicry, if it be so, 
of the young of its foster-mother by the young Cuckoo brings another phase of 
the question before us. It is very conceivable that this resemblance is of ad- 
vantage to the young Cuckoo. The clever Corvus splendens of India apparently 
recognises the imposture and abandons the Cuckoo, as Mr. Hume has observed, 
when it leaves the nest; nevertheless the philoprogenitive instinct in birds is so 
, irresistible that their discriminative powers often appear scarcely to come into 
play at all. Those which have hatched the young Cuculus canorus, do not think 
to restrain themselves from attending to his wants; “the actions of his foster- 
par ents“, writes Prof. Newton, “become, when he is full grown, almost ludi- 
crous, for they often have to perch between his shoulders to place in his gaping 
mouth the delicate morsels he is too indolent or too stupid to take from their 
bill” (Diet, of B. 120). Corvus splendens^ however, is fully aware that Eudynamis 
is in the habit of imposing her eggs upon her; the species in whose nests 
C. canoms places her eggs do not, perhaps, discover that they have heen cheated, 
hut rear the young Cuckoo as a surprisingly fine-grown offspring of their own. 
Were the Cuckoo the most insignificant of the brood in point of size, as well 
as being so anomalous in structure — this is the case with Eudynamis in the 
nest of Corvus — it would run more risk of neglect, and a special adaptation 
of plumage might be an advantage to it. The dwarf pig of a litter is, if we 
are not misinformed, often devoured by the mother. 
The origin of the habit of laying their eggs in the nests of other birds 
probably dates very far back among the Cuckoos; there is reason to suppose 
that the habit runs through all the genera (except Coccyzus) of the subfamily, 
Cuciilinae, as defined by Capt. Shelley (Cat. B. XIX, 210) embracing forms 
differing greatly in coloration and considerably in structure. Thus, Dr. Baldamus 
(Leben der europ. Kuckucke, 1892) cites cases of parasitism in the genera, 
Cuculus^ Hierococcyo! ^) , Cacomantis, Hete?'Oscenes-) , Lamprococcyoc (Chalcococcyx)^ 
Eudynamis^ TJrodynamis^) , Scythrops^ Coccystes. Prof. Newton, further, speaks 
of species of Surniculus^ Phoenicophaes and Zanclostoma as parasitical (Diet, ol 
Birds 1893, 125), but we venture to express a doubt in regard to the two last- 
named genera, which Shelley places in an other subfamily, Phoenicophaeinae, 
inasmuch as Rhopodytes (Zanclostoma) tristis and viridirostris are known to build 
their own nests (Hume, Oates ed. t. c. 397, 399). 
ij H. sparverioides is apparently only partially parasitical. 
2; Treated by Shelley as identical with Cuculus. 
2) Perhaps only partially parasitical (cf. Pinsch, Mitth. Orn. Ver. Wien 1854, VIII, 126). 
Meyer & Wigleswortli, Birds of Celebes (Oct. 23rd, 1897). 27 
