KHASIA HILLS CUCKOO 91 



CUCULUS CANORUS BAKERI Hartert 



KHASIA HILLS CUCKOO 



CONTEIBUTED BY EdWARD CHAKLES StUAKT BaKEB 



HABITS 



This most interesting race of the common European cuckoo was 

 given a name in 1912 by Dr. Hartert (1912), no museum possessing 

 sufficient material until 1911 to substantiate the differences that both 

 Dr. Hartert and I believed to distinguish this subspecies from those 

 others already accepted. 



The lOiasia Hills cuckoo is a race that breeds at considerably lower 

 elevations than do either G. c. canoTms or C. c. telephonus and, speak- 

 ing generally, haunts during the breeding season more densely forested 

 areas in much hotter and far more humid climates. Thus in the 

 Kliasia Hills of Assam, where it is extraordinarily common, it may 

 be found in all the higher ranges at and about Sherraponji between 

 3,500 and 6,500 feet frequenting forest that is always lush and green, 

 with luxuriant undergrowth and with an almost impenetrable tangle 

 of creepers, beautiful orchids, ferns, and parasites growing on every 

 tree. Here the rainfall averages about 550 inches in the year, while 

 as much as 72 inches have fallen in 24 hours and over 700 inches in 

 the 12 months. They are, however, equally numerous, between 4,000 

 and 6,000 feet around Shillong, where the rainfall is less than 150 

 inches in the year and where, in many parts, pine woods take the place 

 of the wet evergreen forests. 



Although on the whole this race of the cuckoo certainly frequents 

 denser and thicker forest than do the other forms, individuals vary 

 greatly in their tastes and those parasitic on pipits and other species 

 of birds, which breed in the open grass plains, also haunt the same 

 kind of country as that in which these birds breed. At the same time 

 even in these places they always select those that contain a certain 

 number of trees on which they can perch and from which they can 

 survey the surrounding area and watch the fosterers to their nests. 

 In the Khasia Hills many cuckoos are parasitic on the conmion Indian 

 and Blyth's pipits, which are to be found nesting on the wide stretches 

 of open grassland above Shillong, the former on ridges and plateaus 

 up to some 5,500 feet and the latter on those above that altitude. In- 

 termediate in habits between the evergreen forest cuckoos and the 

 open country cuckoos there are others that haunt the more open pine 

 forests, especially those that have brooks and small rivers running 

 through them, or are broken up by ravines in which small deciduous 

 trees, bushes, and brambles grow freely to the exclusion of the somber 

 pinQ trees. 



