Birds of the Plains

by Douglas Dewar

In another nest containing two crow’s eggs I placed a golf ball; on returning next day I found the crow sitting tight upon her own two eggs and the golf ball!

But in another case, where I had found two eggs and substituted for them a couple of golf balls, the crow refused to sit. I suppose the idea was, “I may be a bit of a fool when I am nesting, but I am not such a fool as all that!” I once came across a young koel and a crow’s egg in a nest. I removed the former and placed it in a crow’s nest containing four crow’s eggs. The owner of the nest showed no surprise at the sudden appearance of the koel, but set about feeding it in the most matter-of-fact way. The young koel was successfully reared; it is now at large and will next year victimise some crow. I may say that no human being could possibly fail to distinguish between a young koel and a young crow. When first hatched the koel has a black skin, the crow a pink one. The mouth of the crow nestling is an enormous triangle with great fleshy flaps at the side; the mouth of the koel is much smaller and lacks the flaps. The feathers arise very differently in each species, and whereas those of the crow are black, those of the koel are tipped with russet in the cock and white in the hen.

THE INDIAN PADDY BIRD. (ARDEOLA GRAYII)

In another nest containing a young koel (put there by me) and two crow’s eggs, I placed a paddy bird’s (Ardeola grayii) egg, hoping that the gallant crow would hatch it out and appreciate the many-sidedness of her family. She hatched out the egg all right, at least I believe she did. I saw it in the nest the day before the young paddy bird was due; but when I visited the nest the following morning neither egg nor young bird was there. It would seem that the crow did not appreciate the appearance of the latest addition to the family and destroyed it. It is, of course, possible that the young koel declined to associate with such a neighbour and killed it; but I think that the crow was the culprit, for I had previously placed a paddy bird nestling, four days old, in a crow’s nest containing only young crows, and the paddy bird had similarly disappeared.

These, then, are the main facts which my game of cuckoo has brought to light. They are not so decisive as I had expected. They seem to indicate that the actions of birds with eggs or young are not quite so mechanical as I had supposed. Were they not largely mechanical a crow would never hatch out a koel’s egg, nor would it feed the young koel when hatched out; it would not incubate a fowl’s or a paddy bird’s egg, and it would assuredly decline to sit upon a golf ball. On the other hand, were the acts of nesting birds altogether mechanical, the young paddy birds would have been reared up, and the substitution of two golf balls for two eggs would not have been detected. There is apparently a limit to the extent to which intelligence is subservient to blind instinct.

THE KOEL

Anglo-Indians frequently confound the koel with the brain-fever bird. There is certainly some excuse for the mistake, for both are cuckoos and both exceedingly noisy creatures; but the cry of the koel (Eudynamis honorata) bears to that of the brain-fever bird or hawk-cuckoo (Hierococcyx varius) much the same relation as the melody of the organ-grinder does to that of a full German band. Most men are willing to offer either the solitary Italian or the Teutonic gang a penny to go into the next street, but, if forced to choose between them, select the organ-grinder as the lesser of the two evils. In the same way, most people find the fluty note of the koel less obnoxious than the shriek of the hawk-cuckoo.

The latter utters a treble note, which sounds like “Brain fever.” This it is never tired of repeating. It commences low down the musical scale and then ascends higher and higher until you think the bird must burst. But it never does burst. When the top note is reached the exercise is repeated.

The koel is a bird of many cries. As it does not, like the brain-fever bird, talk English, its notes are not easy to reproduce on paper. Its commonest call is a crescendo kuil, kuil, kuil, from which the bird derives its popular name. This cry is peculiar to the cock. The second note is, to use the words of Colonel Cunningham, “an outrageous torrent of shouts, sounding like kūk, kŭū, kŭū, kŭū, kŭū, kŭū, repeated at brief intervals in tones loud enough to rouse the ‘Seven Sleepers.’” The koel is nothing if not impressive. He likes to utter this note just before dawn, when all the world is still. As the bird calls chiefly in the hot weather, when it frequently happens that the hour before sunrise is almost the only one in the twenty-four in which the jaded European can sleep, this note is productive of much evil language on the part of the aforesaid European.