278 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XV J 11. 



These eggs require no description, as they answer in every single 

 respect to those I have already described as belonging to our Indian 

 Cuckoo, micropterus. 



One of Major Magrath's eggs is spotted with three or four tiny 

 specks and spots of darker green blue and the other is unspotted ; 

 all mine are pure blue. 



I would wish to note that I still consider that Col. Rattray's eggs 

 did really belong to C. micropterus and there is need to think, that, 

 because canorus lays blue eggs, micropterus does not do the same. 



Colonel Rattray's and my processes of elimination will, I believe, 

 still lead most people to consider that many of his eggs must have 

 been of the latter species. 



The second important piece of knowledge acquired this year, is 

 through Mr. A. M. Primrose. It will be remembered that Mr. Prim- 

 rose sent me a certain remarkable cuckoo's egg which he had found in 

 the nests of Aethopyga seherice. In compliance with my earnest 

 request, he, this year, paid very especial attention to this matter, and 

 has succeeded in rearing a young cuckoo from the nest, which turns 

 out to be a lovely young Emerald Cuckoo ( Chrysococcyx maculatus). 



These eggs are, therefore, satisfactorily accounted for ; but the find 

 is not only a most notable one, on account of what it demonstrates 

 in this respect, but it is also almost equally so in that it knocks the 

 whole of my theories concerning the eggs of both the Emerald 

 Cuckoos and the Violet Cuckoo to the ground. 



As already recorded, on one occasion, one of these little cuckoos 

 was caught by my men in a nest containing one of the pink eggs 

 described by me as probably belonging to the bird ; but these pink 

 eggs must now be admitted to be those of some other cuckoo. 



It does not matter that the colours are different, but it does matter 

 that size, shape and texture are totally different. 



What my eggs are, I cannot say, they are not those of the 

 Emerald Cuckoo, and I do not think they can be those of the Violet 

 Cuckoo, which can hardly vary so tremendously in every particular 

 from those of the former. 



They may, of course, be those of Penthoceryx from the oviduct egg 

 of which they can hardly be distinguished, but — it is a very big but — 

 P. sonnerati was very rare in N. Cachar, yet the eggs taken were 

 comparatively numerous. 



