MOROC, or MOROC, a beautiful bird of Abyssinia described by Mr Bruce, who thinks its name is derived from mar "honey," though he says that he never heard it was further concerned in the honey than destroying bees. It seems to pursue those insects out of enmity or diversion as well as for food, leaving great numbers dead on the ground, besides those which it devours for food." In consequence of this property, the moroc is never found anywhere but in those parts where the honey is very plentiful, tho' the Abyssinians never take any notice of the ravages they commit among their stocks of bees.

The moroc resembles the cuckoo in size and shape, but differs in other respects. Its mouth is very wide, the opening reaching almost to his eyes; the inside of the mouth and throat yellow, the tongue sharp-pointed, and capable of being drawn almost half its length out of the mouth beyond the point of its beak, and is very flexible. The head and neck are brown, without any mixture of other colours: there are likewise a number of very small and scarcely visible hairs at the root of the beak. The eyebrows are black; the beak pointed, and very little crooked; the pupil of the eye black, and surrounded with an iris of a dull and dusky red: The fore-part of the neck is light yellow, darker on each side than in the middle, where it is partly white: the yellow on each side reaches near the shoulder, or round part of the wing; and from this the whole breast and belly is of a dirty white to the under part of the tail; and from this the feathers begin to be tipped with white, as are all those that cover the outside of the wing. The wing has eight feathers of the largest size and six of the second: the tail consists of twelve feathers, the longest three being in the middle: they are placed closely together; and the tail is of an equal breadth from top to bottom, the feathers being also tipped with white. The thighs are covered with feathers of the same colour as those of the belly, reaching more than half way down the legs, which are black, as well as the feet, and marked distinctly with scales. There are two toes before and behind, each of which has a sharp and crooked claw. It makes a sharp snapping noise when it catches the bees, evidently from closing its beak; but Mr Bruce never could discover that it had any song.

This seems to be the creature mentioned by Dr Sparman under the name of cuculus indicator, which (he says) has the singular property of discovering the nests of wild bees, and leading travellers by a certain cry to the place where the treasure is deposited. According to Sparman's account, it makes known these discoveries by the same cry to foxes as well as to the human species; but Jerome Lobo, who mentions the Abyssinian bird, does not take notice of the foxes, though he mentions its singing melodiously when it arrives at the place where the honey is deposited. Both these accounts are feverly criticised by Mr Bruce. "I cannot (says he), for my own part, conceive, in a country where there are so many thousand hives, that there was any use for giving to a bird a peculiar instinct or faculty of discovering honey, when, at the same time, nature had deprived him of the power of availing himself of any advantage from the discovery; for man seems in this case to be made for the service of the moroc, which is very different from the common and ordinary course of things; man certainly needs him not, for on every tree, and on every hillock, he may see plenty of honey at his own deliberate disposal. I cannot then but think, with all submission to these natural philosophers, that the whole of this is an improbable fiction; nor did I ever hear a single person in Abyssinia suggest, that either this or any other bird had such a property. Sparman says it was not known to any inhabitant of the Cape, any more than that of the moroc was in Abyssinia; it was a secret of nature, hid from all but these two great men; and I most willingly leave it among the catalogue of their particular discoveries."