CUCKOOS. 
o 
16 inches. Its note is described by Canon Tristram as kee-ow, kee-on, and it has 
an alarm-note resembling the word ccirk, as well as a third note, like wurree, 
wurree. It is parasitic, like the members of the genus Cuculus, but does not 
victimise small birds like the true cuckoos, selecting the nests of crows and 
magpies, whose eggs bear a considerable resemblance to its own. The great spotted 
cuckoo often places two, or even four, of its eggs in a nest; where the young 
cuckoos often live in peace with the offspring of the foster-parents, and, so far as is 
known, not attempting to eject the rightful owners. The Indian pied crested 
cuckoo ( C . jacobinus) lays blue eggs, resembling in colour those of the babbling 
thrushes (Crateropus and Argya), in whose nests it places them. Apparently the 
young cuckoo ejects the rightful owners, when the young are hatched, as the 
babblers are often seen in attendance on their parasitic dependents without any of 
their own young being of the party. Sometimes the cuckoo puts two of its eggs 
into a babbler’s nest, and it is said to break some of the foster-parents’ eggs to make 
room for its own. Colonel Butler says that when they discover a nest of a babbler, 
which does not suit them to lay in, the cuckoos invariably destroy the eggs already 
there by driving a hole into them with their bills, and sucking the contents. 
The six species of hawk-cuckoos are remarkable for their exact 
resemblance in colour and flight to a sparrow-hawk, being grey birds 
with a good deal of rufous below, a large yellow eye, and a very broadly banded 
tail. They lay white or greenish - blue eggs, and one species (Hierococcyx 
sparveroides) is said to build its own nest and sit on the eggs. This fact has 
been recorded in the Nilgiri Hills of Southern India, but in the Himalaya the bird 
is stated to be parasitic on the babbling thrushes. 
While the hawk-cuckoos may be distinguished from the crested 
cuckoos by the absence of a crest, the true cuckoos differ from them 
by the shape of the tail, in which the outer feathers are nearly of the same length 
as the others instead of decidedly shorter. Moreover, the tail-feathers lack the 
transverse dark bars of the hawk-cuckoos. The genus is represented by ten 
Hawk-Cuckoos. 
True Cuckoos. 
species, all very similar to one another, and hawk-like in coloration and appear¬ 
ance, the old birds being grey while the young are more or less rufous, the 
Oriental Sonnerat’s cuckoo (Cuculus sonnerati) having, however, the plumage for 
the most part rufous barred with black. Of the ten species, four are African, one 
Australian, and the rest Indian. Their notes vary greatly, only one other species 
besides the European having the “cuckoo” note from which the bird takes its 
name, this being the South African cuckoo (C. gnlctris), which has a note similar 
to that of the common species, but more slowly uttered, and the first syllable not 
in such a high key. The red-chested cuckoo of Africa (C. solitarius ) has a 
whistling note, on account of which it is known to the colonists at the Cape by the 
name of Piet - mijn-vrouw, while the black cuckoo ('C. clcimosus) is, as its Latin 
name implies, a noisy bird, uttering a very loud, harsh note. The Indian cuckoo 
(C. micropterus ), has a note, which Mr. Oates renders as bho-kusha-kho, while the 
Asiatic cuckoo ( C. intermedins), on the other hand, has only a single note, a 
guttural and hollow-sounding hoo, resembling the cry of the hoopoe. One of the 
most interesting of all birds is the common cuckoo ( C. canorus), not the least 
remarkable feature in its conformation being its great similarity to a hawk, as not 
