. Bombay ducks; an account of some of the every-day birds and beasts found in a naturalist's Eldorado . r south as theGodavery District. The two essentially Indian cuckoos are our ubiquitousfriends—the Brain-fever bird and the Koel. The formeris known to scientists as Hierococcyx varius. It is alsocalled the hawk-cuckoo, on account of its resemblanceto a hawk. Its face is its fortune; for the little birds,when they see it, are said to mistake it for a hawk, andso allow it to drive them out of their nests and depositits eggs in them. The seven sisters are its usualvictims. The brain-fever bird
. Bombay ducks; an account of some of the every-day birds and beasts found in a naturalist's Eldorado . r south as theGodavery District. The two essentially Indian cuckoos are our ubiquitousfriends—the Brain-fever bird and the Koel. The formeris known to scientists as Hierococcyx varius. It is alsocalled the hawk-cuckoo, on account of its resemblanceto a hawk. Its face is its fortune; for the little birds,when they see it, are said to mistake it for a hawk, andso allow it to drive them out of their nests and depositits eggs in them. The seven sisters are its usualvictims. The brain-fever bird is, perhaps, the noisiest creaturein India. It can boast of a variety of calls ; the one ofwhich it is most fond and which it utters throughoutthe hot weather, both by day and by night, is a pene-trating crescendo, brain fever, brain fever, BRAIN FEVER,which pierces one through and through. The koel{Endynamys honoratd) is another vociferous cuckoo,which exhibits a great predilection for the climate ofMadras. In that part of the world it is only lesscommon than the crow. The male is a glossy black. THK Kf>EI., OR BLACK CUCKOO, FEMALE INDIAN CUCKOOS 219 bird, which, when seen during flight, looks like aslenderly built crow with an extra long tail. Thefemale is a brown bird spotted with white. This speciesmakes the crow do its nursemaids work for it. Needless to say, the Indian grey-necked crow is notthe bird to be bluffed out of its nest by an ass in alions skin in the shape of a hawk-like cuckoo. If thehen-cuckoo went up threateningly to a crow and triedto enter the nest, the crow would probably remark, Very sorry, maam, full inside, try outside ! It there-fore becomes necessary for the koels to resort to female, who is inconspicuously coloured, remainsin the background, while the showy black cock birdswaggers up to the crows nest upon which the pairhave designs. As a rule, the mere sight of an adultmale koel drives a crow almost mad with fury. Nothing is commo
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectbirdsin, bookyear1906
