I submit, then, that the Wallaceian’s explanation of the hawk-like appearance of the brain-fever bird is in all probability not the correct one. In the same way it is doubtful whether the blue eggs of the brain-fever bird and the pied crested cuckoo can be fairly laid to the charge of natural selection. The common cuckoo sometimes lays its eggs, which are not blue, in the nests of birds whose eggs are blue, for example the hedge-sparrow in England and the Himalayan laughing thrush in India.
The pied crested cuckoo, when it first leaves the nest, differs considerably from the adult in appearance. Its upper parts are slaty grey, and its lower parts, the wing patch and the tips of the outer tail feathers are pale buff, so that the young cuckoo, when flying, might easily be mistaken for a bank myna (_Acridotheres ginginianus_) but for the length of its tail. Like all young cuckoos, it is a greedy, querulous thing. It sits on a branch, clamouring continually for food, flapping its wings and uttering a very fair imitation of the babbler call.
September is the month in which to look out for young pied cuckoos. Those that I have seen appear always to be unaccompanied by foster-brothers or sisters. This would seem to indicate either that the parent cuckoos destroy the legitimate eggs at the time of depositing their own, or that the young birds have the depraved habits of the youthful _Cuculus canorus_. But there are cases on record of young pied crested cuckoos being accompanied by young babblers. It is thus evident that much remains to be discovered regarding the habits of _Coccystes jacobinus_.
Having dealt in _Bombay Ducks_ with what I may perhaps term the domestic vulture of India—_Neophron ginginianus_, or Pharaoh’s chicken—I do not propose again to discuss this worthy but ugly fowl. Nevertheless, before passing on to the aristocratic vultures, I cannot resist the temptation to reproduce Phil Robinson’s inimitable description of our familiar _Neophron_: “A shabby-looking fowl of dirty white plumage, about the size of an able-bodied hen, but disproportionately long for its height, pacing seriously along the high road, taking each step with its legs set wide apart, with all the circumspection of a Chinaman among papers, but keeping its eyes as busily about it for chance morsels of refuse as any other professional scavenger. The traffic, both of vehicles and foot passengers, may be considerable, but the vulture is a municipal institution and knows it. No one thinks of molesting it; indeed, if it chose to obstruct the footpath, the natives would make way for it. Children let it alone, and dogs do not run after it. So it goes plodding through its day’s work, solemn, and shabby, and hungry, uncomplaining, and poor, and at night flaps up into some tree and quietly dozes off to sleep.” _Neophron ginginianus_ always puts me in mind of the heroes in some of George Gissing’s novels.