The bird resembles in plumage a pheasant. Cumbersome and slow of flight,
clumsy in alighting, he frequently loses his equilibrium, and is
compelled to use his long tail as a counter-balance, as he jumps from
branch to branch ascending a tree, in order to gain elevation, whence to
swoop and flop across the intervening space to the next. When compelled to
take wing from a low elevation, the flight is slow and laboured in the
extreme. He is a handsome fellow, the ruling colours being glossy black,
brown and reddish chestnut. One writer describes the bird as half hawk,
half pheasant, another as a non-parasitic cuckoo; another "really a
cuckoo"; another a swamp or tree parrot with the foot of a lark. Without
daring to attempt to dispute any of these descriptions, I may say that
the bird is a decided character and possesses the charm of originality.
He has become so confiding that he will perch on the gatepost as one
enters, assuming a fierce and resentful aspect, and he will play "hawk"
to the startled fowls. He eats the eggs of other birds and kills chicks;
but his murderous instincts are rarely exhibited, and then only, perhaps,
when his passions are aroused.
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