AFRICAN PARASITIC CUCKOOS — FRIEDMANN 379 



Clamator jacobinus (Boddaert) 



Jacobin cuckoo 



New information gathered on the jacobin cuckoo does more than 

 merely yield additional instances of its parasitism on previously 

 recorded hosts. Many additional records of its eggs in nests of 

 Layard's bulbuls (Pycnonotus tricolor layardi), sombre bulbuls 

 (xindropadus imjmrlunus im/portunus) , and fiscal shrikes (Lanius 

 collaris collaris) corroborate the predominance these hosts play in 

 the economy of the parasite, but, merely as records, they add no 

 reveahng new data. Two additional instances of the bakbakiri 

 (Telephonus zeylonus) added to the three listed in my book suggest 

 that this shrike is more frequentlj^ victimized than was formerly 

 suspected. These instances are: (1) a nest found at Butterworth, 

 Cape Province, by Pike on February 4 with one egg of the host and 

 one of the parasite, and (2) a case reported by A. W. Vincent (1949, 

 p. 138) from Kichmond, Natal. 



Two new host species may be recorded. Skead (1954, p. 46) 

 reports that an egg of this cuckoo was found in a nest of the paradise 

 flycatcher (Terpsiphone viridis perspicillata) at Fleet Ditch Kloof, 

 near King Wilham's Town, eastern Cape Province, on Dec. 18, 1954. 

 In the Victoria Memorial Museum at Salisbury in 1951 I found a set 

 of two eggs of the grassbu'd {Sphenoeacus ojer transvaalensis) with 

 one egg of the jacobin cuckoo, taken at Inyanga, Southern Rhodesia 

 (no date), by Flight Lt. E. F. Allen. This is not only a record of a 

 new host but also is the only instance kno\\ai to me of the parasite 

 using a nest built close to the ground. The one record of the jacobin 

 parasitizing a kingfisher, described in m}^ book (Friedmann, 1949a, 

 p. 31), may well be questioned; it may have been a honey-guide's agg. 



In my earher account (Friedmann, 1949a, p. 36) of the hosts of this 

 parasite I raised some doubts as to two cases recorded by de Klerk 

 of the jacobin cuckoo laying its eggs in nests of the yellow- throated 

 sparrow (Petronia superciliaris) and suggested that the records might 

 refer to honey-guides. However, de Klerk's measurements are too 

 large for any hone^^-guide's eggs and agree very closely v/ith other, 

 authentic eggs of the jacobin cuckoo. The records must therefore 

 be accepted, but it remains that the host is a very unusual one, 

 nesting, as it does, in holes in trees, a t^^pe of nesting site not otherwise 

 known to be utilized by the jacobin cuckoo. 



Incubation Period 



The incubation period is still to be determined, but Skead's (1951, 

 pp. 171-172) incomplete evidence suggests a shorter period thantdid 

 my own similarly fractional data (Friedmann, 1949a,\p. 37)._^It may 



