275 



ADDITIONAL CUCKOO NOTES. 



BY 



E. C. Stuart Baker, F.Z.S. 

 (Continued from page 894 of Volume XVII.) 



The year 1907 has added two important items to our knowledge of 

 cuckoo oology. The most important of these two is, perhaps, the 

 obtaining, by Major H. A. F. Magrath, of an oviduct blue egg of 

 Cuculus canorus, the Common Cuckoo. 



The first egg obtained was forwarded to me through a friend with 

 the following letter : — 



" I am sending you a cuckoo's egg, taken by me on the 1st June, 

 from the nest of Oreicola ferrea (The Dark-grey Bush-Chat) in 

 Thandiani, on the top of the hill. 



" The egg is interesting for the following reasons : — The only cuckoo 

 which occurs, as far as I can see, up here, is C. canorus, and it is so 

 common as to be almost a nuisance. C. saturatus also occurs, but 

 lower down. Although Thandiani ridge is only 40 miles from 

 Murree, yet it is due north of it, and is isolated from the ridge on 

 which the Gallis are situated. I think, therefore, that it is very 

 probably outside of the range of the subtropical cuckoos. If any of 

 the other cuckoos occurred I should surely have heard of them, and 

 as you know, I spend my days up here after birds. I am well 

 acquainted with the ' Kaphul Pakkha ' notes of the micropterus 

 which one hears all round Mussoorie, the brain fever notes of 

 Hierococcyx, and the notes of Coccystes jacobinus. For all of them 

 have I listened intently, therefore I think we can eliminate these 

 three birds. Surniculus lugubris may occur ; but I have never heard 

 their call, and from the size of the egg I think we can eliminate him. 



"There remains C. poliocephalus, Cac. passerinus, C. saturatus, and 

 C. canorus. The first two, as I have said before, I have neither 

 seen nor heard, and I have been pretty well all over the ridge. The 

 ' up poop, poop, poop, poop ' of No. 3 is heard pretty freely from 

 7,000' down, and I once got close to a bird which was calling at 

 about 8,000'. 



" Up here, then, which is between 9,000' and 10,000', canorus has 

 it pretty well her own way : both she and the common foster parent 

 of her eggs, Oreicola ferrea, are very common. 

 7 



