ORNITHOLOGICAL EXPLORATIONS. 



229 



in C. peninsulce the lower ones are fused together, having entirely swal- 

 lowed up the intervening black spaces ; the white spots, in this form, 

 are much broader than the black separating them, while, in the Japanese 

 birds, the proportion between the white and black is exactly the reverse. 

 In dimensions, in the broad and distant bars on the lower surface, and 

 in the scanty barring on the under wing-coverts, the two forms agree 

 very well. 



The rufous specimen (No. 92699) has the bars underneath still broader 

 and blacker ; the upper surface is more deei)]y hazel than the corre- 

 sponding stage of C. canorus, the rump being quite chestnut, strongly 

 and broadly barred with black ; the brown color descends on the sides 

 of head and neck, and strongly tinges the throat. 



As already stated, two stragglers of this species were shot by me on 

 Copper Island, one in 18S2 the other in 1883. Both were met on the 

 eastern shore near the beach, the former at the main village, the latter, 

 which was in the hepatic stage of plumage, a little north of the settle- 

 ment Karabelnij. No note was heard. 



Dimensions. 



No. 89128 (Gray plumage). — Iris, outer ring cream colored, inner grayish brown. Naked eye-ring 

 bright yellow. Bill horny black; basal tbird of upper mandible (except nasal tube.'*) and two-thirds 

 of the lower are yellowish ; angle of mouth, and lower jaw along the chin angle, orange yellow. In- 

 side of mouth pale orange-red. Feet light cadmium yellow. Contents of stomach, Oammaridce ! 



No. 92699 (Hepatic plumage). — Iris light cream colored, inner ring tinged with brownish gray, outer 

 one slightly so with greenish. Bill blackiali bluish gray, lighter on lower mandible ; tubercle in the 

 middle of nostrils olive-yellow ; angle of moutli and base of lower jaw orange-yellow. Interior of 

 mouth delicate orange-red. Naked eye-ring bright golden yellow. Feet orange-yellow, claw of outer 

 toe dusky. Eggs small. 



In Petropaulski I was told of a cuckoo said to be distinguishable 

 from the common one especially by its quite different voice. This is the 

 present species, but I never met with it in Kamtschatka, where it has 

 been collected by Dybowski.* 



* Cf , also KiTTLiiz, Deukwiird, II, p. 198: "Das an unsein Wiedebopf erinnernde 

 Gehchrei, das man Uier dem Kuckuck zuschreibt, nnd das auch wirklicb neben jenem 

 andern [tbe common cry of tbe European cuckoo] von ibm berzurlibren scbeint." 



