396 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol. loe 



branch of a defoliated tree. A male was on a higher branch, calling 

 loudly; it flew down to the hen and, with wings drooping and tail 

 erect, bobbed in front of her, and presented her with a large hairy 

 caterpillar. This offering was accepted and devoured, the cock bird 

 calling loudly with its head thrown v^^ell back during this time. A 

 second similar display was then gone through, after which coition was 

 attempted unsuccessfully. Shortly after this both birds flew away. 

 Haydock's observations were made in central Northern Rhodesia in 

 the third week in January. 



In my earlier account of this cuckoo, mention was made of the fact 

 that male birds seemed to be "territorial" and to establish singing 

 posts to which they adhered day after day. These observations I 

 made in western Kenya Colony. Welcome corrobation by virtue of 

 similar observations now is available from the Upemba Park, Belgian 

 Congo, where Verheyen (1953, pp. 319-320) found the same situation. 

 He goes further and writes that the males reserve a w^ell defined area 

 which they defend against the intrusion of other males. This is, 

 however, an unsupported statement as he does not describe any 

 actual instances of territorial defense, and all I knew previously was 

 merely the fact that males sang persistently from their singing posts. 



In Principe and San Thome Islands, Keulemans (1907) found this 

 cuckoo to be migratory, being present on the islands only from Feb- 

 ruary until November. 



Chalcites klaas (Stephens) 



Klaas's cuckoo 

 Host Species 



All the new information on this cuckoo refers merely to additional 

 host records, the total of which may now be raised from the 33 species 

 listed in my earlier accounts to 42 species, or, if we count species and 

 subspecies, to 50 forms. Of the total of all instances of this bird's 

 parasitism known to me, 30 percent are with sunbirds as hosts, 23 

 percent with flycatchers, 16 percent with weavers, and the rest single 

 or, at most, two records for wagtails, bulbuls, babblers, starlings, 

 white-ej^es, and finches. While 30 percent of the parasitized nests 

 are those of sunbirds, the 10 species of this family recorded as hosts 

 of the cuckoo amount to not quite 25 percent of the total known 

 species of victims. Similarly, seven species of flycatchers, or about 

 16 percent of the total of 42 kinds of hosts, account for almost 25 

 percent of the recorded instances. 



The arrow-marked babbler {Turdoides jardinei) is listed as a host 

 of Klaas's cuckoo by Winterbottom (1951, p. 15), but no specific 

 instances are given. I am not aware of any published pertinent data. 



