CUCULIFORMES. 



469 



Europe and Asia. C. aenas L., the stock-dove ; Columha palumbus L. 

 the ring dove, wood pigeon. Ectopistes migrator ius L., the passenger 

 pigeon, N-.Amer. Turtur auritus Bp., the turtle-dove ; T. risorius 

 Sws. Goura coronata Flem., New Guinea. Treron, Vinago, Carpophaga, 

 fruit-pigeons of tropical parts of the Old World ; Otidiphaps, New Guinea. 



Fam. Didunculidae. Beak compressed, lower jaw toothed, with hooked 

 extremity. Didunculus strigirostris Gould, Samoan Islands. 



Fam. Dididae. Large, extinct, flightless birds. Furcula and wings 

 small, coracoid fused with scapula. Didus ineptus L., the dodo, Mauritius, 

 found by the Dutch in 1598, and was last known as living in 1681. Several 

 brought alive to Europe ; pictures of these still exist ; nearly complete 

 skeletons in the museums of Cambridge, Paris, and Port Loviis, one scarcely 

 less so in the British Museimi. It was an unwieldy bird, larger than a 

 turkey, with lax plumage, powerful four-toed scraping feet, and strongly 

 cleft beak. D. borbonicus Reunion, only known from travellers' descrip- 

 tions. Pezophaps solitarius Gm., the solitaire, Rodriguez, was larger than 

 a swan, extirpated about 

 the same time as the 

 dodo ; two nearly com- 

 plete skeletons in the 

 Cambridge Museum, one 

 scarcely less so in the 

 British Museum. 



Tribe 12. CUCULI- 

 FORMES. 



Arboreal birds with a 

 desmognath ous skull. 

 The first and fourth toes 

 are directed backwards 

 (zygodactylous), but the 

 fourth toe may be rever- 

 sible. The young are 

 altrices. 



Group 1. Cuculi. 



Fio. 254. — Columha litia (after Nauniann). 



Quintocubital, zygodactylous arboreal birds. Cosmopolitan. 



Fam. Cuculidae. Cuckoos. With gently-curved, deeply-cleft beak, 

 long pointed wings, with ten primaries, and wedge-shaped pointed tail. 

 The fourth toe can be directed forwards. About 200 species, cosmo- 

 politan. Cuculus canorus L.,the European cuckoo, adult somewhat like a 

 sparrowhawk ; it lays its eggs upon the ground and transfers them in its bill 

 to the nests of other birds, usually of the meadow-pipit, the reed-warbler, the 

 hedge-sparrow and the robin ; the egg is incubated by its foster-mother and 

 about 30 hours after hatching the young bird ejects the rightful 

 young and eggs of the nest ; the adults migrate to the South in July and 

 August, but the young not till September or October, reaching as far as 

 S. Africa, Ceylon, Celebes. The familiar cry is uttered by the male in the 

 breeding season. They seem in some cases at least to use the nests of 

 birds the eggs of which resemble their own. Other species of cuckoo have 

 the same parasi'dc habit; e.g. Coccystes glandarius L., the great spotted 

 cuckoo of S. I urope. Other genera of cuckoos are Chrysococcyx, Caco- 



