104 BULLETIN 17 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



their contents. I have often watched the birds of the genus Den- 

 drocitta and Cissa beating over an area in search of nests, quarter- 

 ing it with the care and energy of a spaniel after game. The young 

 birds suffer also very greatly from being too large for the nests 

 in which they are hatched. Half grown they fall out on to the 

 ground, and many, which escape death from vermin, are killed by 

 exposure to heavy rain. 



The older birds seem to have no special enemies, their swift 

 flight and comparatively large size saving them from the sudden 

 death so often the fate of smaller, slower birds. At the same time 

 birds of prey undoubtedly attack and kill them just as they would 

 any other bird of similar size and their superficial resemblance — 

 in human eyes — to a sparrow hawk, would certainly not deceive their 

 would-be destroyers even if these were sparrow hawks. Nor do the 

 small birds attack cuckoos because they helieve them to be hawks, 

 but because they know them to be cuckoos and, in their own way as 

 objectionable as hawks. 



Fall. — The Khasia Hills cuckoo is far more sedentary in charac- 

 ter than its nearest relations and, possibly, is originally a sedentary 

 race from which the migratory forms have sprung. I have seen 

 the bird in the Kliasia Hills in every month of the year except 

 February and, as it is silent in the winter months and does not call 

 attention to its presence, it is probably even more numerous in its 

 breeding range at this time than has hitherto been supposed, while 

 some individuals may be resident in the same locality all the year 

 round. At the same time migration does take place in some degree 

 and this dark race has been found in winter, certainly, in Bengal, 

 more especially in tlie eastern districts on the Bay, in Orissa, once 

 by Annandale (MS.), while it extends through Burma, south to 

 Prome (Mackenzie and Hopwood, MS.) ; south Siam (E. G. Her- 

 bert, MS.) and finally, almost certainly, to southwestern China. 

 I have no proof that in the Indian Empire adult cuckoos migrate any 

 earlier than the birds of the year. About September the pleasant 

 call, which has been heard continually up to the end of July and 

 casually up to the end of August, ceases entirely, and the birds 

 are also far less frequently seen on the higher ranges of hills and, 

 by October, nearly all the birds, old and young, have left these and 

 have taken to the lower hills and the broken country at their bases, 

 thence slowly and gradually extending into the plains in the districts 

 already mentioned. It is also possible, of course, that this cuckoo 

 may range farther south in winter than stated above, as records 

 of GuGulus canoTus (subspecies?) have been recorded from Madras 

 and from the islands of the Austro-Malayan region, between October 



