. Animal Life and the World of Nature; A magazine of Natural History. 38o Animal Life evidently proved an ample means of protection where there was no chance of shuffling. Indeed, in Yarkand, Golden Orioles (Oriolus kundoo) have been seen to drive off a big Jungle-Crow as boldly as the friar-birds which their shabby relatives copy. As a further instance of the essentially fortuitous character of these resemblances, attention may be profitably directed to the particularly beautiful one of the Brain- Fever-Bird to the Shikra. We can see why it pays this cuckoo to look like the hawk, but there is
. Animal Life and the World of Nature; A magazine of Natural History. 38o Animal Life evidently proved an ample means of protection where there was no chance of shuffling. Indeed, in Yarkand, Golden Orioles (Oriolus kundoo) have been seen to drive off a big Jungle-Crow as boldly as the friar-birds which their shabby relatives copy. As a further instance of the essentially fortuitous character of these resemblances, attention may be profitably directed to the particularly beautiful one of the Brain- Fever-Bird to the Shikra. We can see why it pays this cuckoo to look like the hawk, but there is a very curious little point which makes the fortuitousness of the " mimicry" almost certain. Many hawks have a little tubercle just inside the nostril, and this is reproduced in the brain-fever-bird. But setting aside the improbability of a terrified bird stopping to notice whether the object of its fear had tubercles in the nostrils or not—in which case, too, it could not fail to see the different beak—it so happens that the shikra itself does not possess this little nasal prominence! Thus the possession thereof by the cuckoo is a mere chance coincidence, and if this be the case with such a small detail why may not the resemblance of plumage and form be so likewise'? As a matter of fact, the cuckoos as a family are very prone to show resemblances to birds of prey. For instance, a common Indian non-parasitic ground-cuckoo (Gentropus sinensis), whose want of resemblance to a hawk when adult may be judged from its popular name of " Crow-Pheasant," is usually, when young, barred across with black and white and black and brown, and with its strong curved bill and bright eyes distinctly recalls a young bird of prey. Birds also appear to notice the resemblance, for when once in the Calcutta bazaar I approached a cage of guinea-fowls with such a young cuckoo perched on my hand they shrieked hysterically and stared shrinking! y at it in such a way as to leave n
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookpublisherlondo, bookyear1902
