28o OUR FA VOURITE SONG BIRDS 



of the bird and its allies in the present volume would 

 be an unpardonable omission. The Cuckoo's cry- 

 is in certain respects a " song," gained and lost 

 according to season, peculiar to the male sex, and 

 analogous in every respect to the sounds of more 

 musical species ; so that a brief notice of this bird 

 and its allies cannot fail to prove of interest. Before 

 proceeding to notice our British Cuckoo, mention 

 must be made of the singular cries or "soncrs" of 

 some of the foreign species. Beginning with the 

 species of which our own Cuckoo is typical, we find 

 a curious and interesting variation in the note 

 they utter. For instance, the Himalayan Cuckoo 

 {CucuIms himalayamis) utters a guttural and deep- 

 sounding hoo, very similar to the cry of the Hoopoe. 

 This cry, which may be heard for a long distance, 

 is repeated several times in succession. The Grey- 

 headed Cuckoo {C. poliocephalus), of Africa, cries kow- 

 kow, kow-kow, all day long from the woods ; whilst 

 another African species, the Red-breasted Cuckoo, 

 has a whistling note of three syllables. The Indian 

 Cuckoo (C. micropterus) utters a startling cry 

 rendered by some observers as bho-kusha-kho. The 

 Great Spotted Cuckoo {Coccystes glandarius), typical 

 of another group, sings kee-oiv-kee-oiv. The Golden 

 Cuckoo [Chrysococcyx cupreus), of tropical Africa, has 

 a note which Layard describes as an "oft-repeated 

 mournful cry o{ di-di-di didricT The Yellow-billed 

 Cuckoo {Coccyz2is amcncanus), of America, utters 



