mit the care of its offspring. The crows seem to have a shrewd suspicion that they are played upon in some way by the Koel, and they never see the bird without mobbing him, but he dives into some thick tree with loud screams, and dodges them among the foliage, while the silent and insidious hen Koel takes advantage of their absence to drop an egg or two into their nests. Crows cannot count above three at the most, and the new egg is not unlike their own, so they never discover the trick, and when the young bird grows up and develops its long tail, they are quite proud of it. Only yesterday I saw a pair of crows fondly feeding a clamorous young Koel, together with its foster brother, their own child. It was hungry and clamorous too, but the Koel appeared to be the favourite with the parents. The European Cuckoo coolly ejects the rightful occupants of the nest and takes their inheritance. The young Koel is not so base.
There is another Cuckoo whose voice is more depressing to me than that of the Koel, and it is more persistent; at least, it cries more in the night. Its Latin name, Cacomantis passerinus (in Jerdon, Polyphasia nigra is particularly happy. Jerdon calls it the Plaintive Cuckoo, and likens its cry to the syllables, Kaveer, Kaveer, Kaveer. It is also black, or dark ashy, and long-tailed like the Koel, but it is a little bird. Its eggs have been found in the nests of wren-warblers, bulbuls, and other small birds. It is seldom seen.
Neither of these two Cuckoos is nearly so common in Bombay as on the mainland. But there is another species which appears to prefer our island to any
