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BULLETIN 17 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Among the Khasias, certain classes of whom are very intelligent 

 observers, it appears to be well known that both sexes of cuckoo 

 exercise no discretion in their love affairs. 



Nesting. — The female cuckoo is, of course, parasitic in her habits, 

 and I have personally taken eggs in the nests of no less than 103 

 species and subspecies of fosterer (see following list) , the very great 

 majority of which are, however, undoubtedly abnormal or casual 

 only, for I feel satisfied that when the usual foster parent has no 

 nest available the cuckoo will eventually deposit her egg in that 

 of any other bird that may be convenient. Repeated instances have 

 come within my own experience in which a cuckoo normally para- 

 sitic on one bird deposits one or more of a series of eggs in a nest 

 utterly unlike those of the usual fosterer, merely because she has 

 already exhausted all the nests known to her of the latter. 



List of Foster Parents 



Suya crinigera (subspecies 6) 215 eggs 



Cisticola jundicis cursitans 276 



Cisticola exilis tytleri (generally with C. j. c. series) 7 



Trihura luteiventris 32 



Orthotoinus (species and siTbspecies 2) 27 



Acanthopneuste reguloides harterti 9 



Megalurus palustris 7 



Miscellaneous warblers (abnormal fosterers, 9) 25 



Anthus (various species and subspecies, 8) 199 



Rhodophila ferrea haringtoni 18 



Saxicola caprata iurmanica 55 



Rhyacornis fuUginosus 25 



Enicurus (species 2) 25 



Petrophila (Monticola) (species 2) 21 



Turdidae (abnormal fosterers, species 8) 15 



Cyanosylvia leucura 13 



Eumyias thalassina thalassina 63 



Niltava (species 3) 43 



Muscicapidae (abnormal fosterers, species 12) 22 



Lanius nigriceps nigriceps 35 



Lauiidae (abnormal fosterers, species 2) 2 



Troglodytidae (species 3) 21 



Mesia agentauris 46 



Leiothrix calypyga 33 



Timaliidae (abnormal fosterers, species 32) 92 



Other abnormal fosterers, Passer, Sitta, Par us, etc. (7 



species) 8 " 



Total Fosterers: Normal 23, abnormal 80 (=103). 



Like the English cuckoo, as Chance (1922) has proved, the Khasia 

 Hills female cuckoo sometimes adopts a certain area of country as 

 its own breeding territory into which it will allow no other female, 

 parasitic on the same foster parent, to enter, though it seems to have 



