Vol.. II. AUGUST, 1893. No. 8. 



AMERICAN BIRD-VISITORS TO IRELAND AT HOME. 



BY W. K. PRAKGER, OF KKOKUK, IOWA. 



III. The YE1.1.OW- bulled Cuckoo (Goccyszis americayius). 



Long will my first spring in America be the best remembered 

 of springs to me. I had spent the winter in Iowa, an unusually 

 severe and long-continued winter, and at last the hot sun had 

 melted the snow, and the thick ice on pond and river had 

 broken up, and rapidly the lately silent land was filled with 

 sights and sounds, to me new and strange. And so, week 

 after week it continued ; daily new flowers, insects, and reptiles 

 sprang into life again, while from the south the great stream 

 of migration brought the birds in ever increasing number and 

 variety. It can well be imagined what surfeit of surprise, 

 wonder, and interest, the shortest country walk afforded under 

 such circumstances. 



Perhaps the most noticeable sound to me was a note heard 

 in the woods and resembling the word "cow," often repeated, 

 at first rather slowly, gradually getting quicker, but the last 

 three or four notes suddenly becoming longer drawn out than 

 any of the preceding ones. It sounded as if it might be the 

 note of some gallinaceous bird, but it was no more like any 

 bird's note that I had ever heard, than were those of many of 

 the insects and frogs that made the woods resound with their 

 extraordinary spring love-songs ; and indeed I have since read 

 that the note in question is very similar to that of the Bur- 

 rowing Owl of the western prairies, and also of the Spade- 

 footed Toad. After awhile I caught occasional glimpses of the 

 mysterious originator of the sounds, and was told that they 



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