VIEWS CONCERNING CUCKOOS 
and “warningly coloured” of caterpillars, the koel 
is a pure vegetarian. This bird in its several species 
is widely ranging in the East, but belongs entirely to 
the eastern hemisphere. Its name is plainly onomato- 
poeic. Its voice is melodious, and we are informed that 
‘it is used by the youthful oriental as a comparison 
standard of the voice of his beloved as is its plumage 
of her beauty. But on the other hand it is black of 
heart like other cuckoos, and leaves to others the care 
of bringing up its offspring. This cuckoo lays its eggs 
for choice in the nests of the Indian crow (Corvus 
splendens), and it is remarkable that the wiliest among 
Indian birds does not frustrate its unbidden guest. 
Its eggs, too, are like those of the crow in colour, though 
smaller ; it is said that the newly hatched cuckoo ejects 
its foster brethren in the good old fashion of the British 
cuckoo. It diverges from its ally in this country in 
the fact that it is not migratory, and is entirely stay-at- 
home. Some would write the name cuckoo “ cuckow,”’ 
a reversion to an older, but not in our opinion “‘ more 
scholarly,” method of orthography. For as the word 
is, like the word “ koel,”’ distinctly formed in imitation 
of the note of the bird itself, other old transliterations 
might be invoked. Thus we might insist upon calling 
the bird “ Gukgo,” and indeed that word is a trifle more 
suggestive of the bird when he “alters his tune” in 
June. There are at least two remarkable facts about 
the cuckoo tribe, with the outlines of which every one 
is acquainted, and about which it is necessary to say 
something. The parasitical habits have been known 
from the remotest antiquity. The knowledge of the 
same has gradually accumulated, but there are still 
problems that require solution. It is always mentioned 
as a curiosity of the history of Natural History, that 
the habits of the cuckoo were largely elucidated by the 
discoverer of vaccination, Jenner. What the cuckoo 
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