90 BULLETIN 17 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



their eggs, these and the young birds when hatched do not suffer so 

 greatly from the crows and magpies who hunt the hedges and bushes, 

 but, on the other hand, they are easier for snakes and lizards to get at. 

 Fall. — Migration from the breeding grounds in northwest India 

 apparently commences in the end of August and continues to the 

 end of September or early October, From northeast India they 

 would seem to migrate later by about a month, birds continuing to 

 call up to the beginning of August, while in 1914 an egg was taken 

 as late as August 20. It is a curious fact that in the continent of 

 India birds do not seem to move far south and have only been re- 

 corded in winter from many places in the plains of the northwest 

 and Punjab and from Lucknow, Jodhpore, Fategarh, Bihar, Dibru- 

 garh and Cachar, in the United Provinces, Bengal, and Assam. 

 Farther east it migrates much farther south and has been recorded 

 from all over Burma to the extreme south, and from the Andamans 

 and Nicobars, while it also ranges throughout the Malay Peninsula 

 and the Austro-Malaysian islands to New Guinea and Australia. 

 Birds found in winter east of Burma are certainly those that breed 

 north of China and probably migrate, more or less, due north and 

 south, and I am inclined to think it is possible that birds from the 

 Himalayas migrate almost entirely to the east in India and then 

 southeast through Burma and the Malay States. Otherwise it seems 

 incredible that no specimens should ever be obtained, in south India 

 or even central India, of a migrant which in and from China wanders 

 so very far south in the winter months. 



DISTRIBUTION 



The Himalyan cuckoo is found throughout the Himalayas and cen- 

 tral Asia from the extreme west of India and Baluchistan, while in 

 central Siberia it extends from Dauria and Lake Baikal to the extreme 

 east of the northern Chinese mountains and, possibly, to Japan. In 

 China La Touche (1931) summarizes its distribution as follows: 

 "China generalh^ Szechuen, Kwangsi, Fohkien, Lower Yangtse, 

 Shaweishan, Shantung, Chihli (migrant)." To this he adds, "On 

 the whole this Cuckoo is not common in North China, and very few 

 have been noted by Dr. Wilder," and, again, noting on my distribu- 

 tion of the summer range he adds, "Corea and Manchuria should 

 probably be added." 



It certainly occurs and breeds in all the higher hills in Burma; 

 quite commonly in the Chin Hills and rarely to the east in the Kuby 

 Mines district and the Shan States. 



Its appearance on the American list is due to a specimen obtained 

 on St. Paul Island, Pribilof Islands, Alaska, on July 4, 1890 

 (W. Palmer, 1894). 



