Page:The Common Birds of Bombay.djvu/70

54 and all, like the home bird, are better known to the ear than the eye. The most familiar of them all is the Koel (Eudynamys orientalis, or honorata). It is a great black fowl almost as large as a crow, with a much longer tail and a green bill. That is the male. The female is of a dark-greenish dusky hue, spotted and banded with white. But the Koel is seldom seen. It is—

Early in the morning, through the hottest hours of the day, late in the evening, sometimes in the dead of night, its loud and mellow voice calls to us in a rising crescendo, "Who-be-you? Who-be-you? Who-be-you?" And we call it the Brain-fever Bird. We are strange and whimsical creatures. An old English poet complains—

But the fashion has changed now, and the lend cuckow has become a favourite of the poets. It is the "darling of the spring," a "blessed bird," and its note is a "mellow May song, clear and loud." Meanwhile, its own cousin in India is the Brain-fever Bird. Yet the Koel also is a darling of the spring. It does not altogether leave us in winter, but at that season it is silent. As the weather grows warm it begins to utter its joyful note, and its spirits rise with the temperature; in May it cannot contain itself at any hour of the twenty-four. One is prompted to ask, What is all the excitement about? That is easily answered. In May the crows are busy building their qests, and it is to them that the Koel intends to