MOROC, or MAROC, 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.

The moroc resembles the cuckoo in size and shape, but differs in other respects. Its mouth is very wide, the opening reaching almost to its 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.

This seems to be the bird mentioned by 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, takes no 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 severely criticised by Mr Bruce, who says, that honey is so abundant on every hillock and every tree, that a bird possessing this faculty could be of no use to man or to any other animal in that country, and that having never heard of such a bird in Abyssinia, he considers the account of it as a fiction.