54 BULLETIN 17 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



The range as outlined is for the entire species, which has been 

 separated into several subspecies, only one of which is found in North 

 America. This race, known as Maynard's cuckoo, C. m. maynardi^ 

 is found in the Bahamas, Cuba, and the southern part of Florida, 

 including the Florida Keys. 



Migration. — Apparently only Maynard's cuckoo is migratory, and 

 this only in the Florida part of its range. Early dates of arrival 

 in Florida are : Gator Lake in Monroe County, March 22, and Punta 

 Rossa, March 29. A late date of departure from Key West is Sep- 

 tember 19. 



Egg dates. — Florida and the Keys : 13 records. May 17 to July 10. 



COCCYZUS AMERICANUS AMERICANUS (Linnaeus) 



YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO 



Plates 6, 7 



HABITS 



The yellow-billed cuckoo, with its western subspecies, covers practi- 

 cally all the United States and some of southern Canada. It is mainly 

 a bird of the Austral Zone, being much commoner in the Southern 

 States than in the northern portions of its range. In New England 

 it is not so common as the black-billed cuckoo, though in some seasons 

 it seems to be a familiar bird. Originally it was probably a woodland 

 bird, but, like many other species, it has learned to frequent the 

 haunts of man, where it is not molested and where it finds an abundant 

 food supply in our shade trees, orchards, and gardens. Its favorite 

 haunts are still the woodland thickets, where the tree growth is not 

 too heavy, brush-grown lanes, shady roadsides, dense thickets along 

 small streams, and apple orchards in rural districts. In dense, heavy 

 woods it is seldom seen. 



Nesting. — Unlike the European cuckoo, both of our North Ameri- 

 can species usually build their own nests and rear their own young, 

 though they are very poor nest builders and are often careless about 

 laying in each other's nests or the nests of other species. Major 

 Bendire (1895) gives the following very good account of the nesting 

 habits of the yellow-billed cuckoo : 



The Yellow-billed Cuckoo is one of the poorest nest builders known to me, 

 and undoubtedly the slovenly manner in which it constructs its nest causes the 

 contents of many to be accidentally destroyed, and this probably accounts to 

 some extent for the many apparent irregularities in their nesting habits. The 

 nests are shallow, frail platforms, composed of small rootlets, sticks, or twigs, 

 few of these being over 4 or 5 inches in length, and among them a few dry 

 leaves and bits of mosses ; rags, etc., are occasionally mixed in, and the surface 

 is lined with dry blossoms of the horse-chestnut and other flowering plants, the 

 male aments or catkins of oaks, willows, etc., tufts of grasses, pine and spruce 



