606 



SYSTEMATIC SYNOPSIS. — PICARI^ — COCCYGES. 



crested; plumage coarse. Adult $ 9: Above, lustrous bronzy or coppery-greeu, cbanging to 

 dark steel-blue on head and neck, to purplish-violet on middle tail-feathers; everywhere except 

 on rump conspicuously streaked with white, mixed with tawny on head, neck, and wings — 

 this white and buflf streaking consisting of edges of the feathers, which are frayed out, fringe- 

 like, producing a peculiar effect. Breast, throat, and sides of neck mixed tawny-white and 

 black; other under parts dull soiled whitish. Primaries white-tipped and with oblique white 

 space on outer webs. Lateral tail-feathers steel-blue with green and violet reflections, their 

 outer webs fringed part way with white, their tips broadly white. Lower back and rump, 

 where covered by the folded wings, dark-colored and unmarked ; under surface of wings sooty- 

 brown. Bare space around eye blue, bluish-white, and orange: iris red. Bill dark horn- 

 color ; feet the same, the larger scales yellowish. Young birds are very similar, the iridescence 

 developing with the first growth of the feathers, as in a Magpie; more white and less tawny 





Fig. 417. — Ground Cuckoo, J nat. size. 



(From Brehm.) 



in the streaking. Nearly two feet long ; tail a foot or less ; wing Q-7 inches ; tarsus 2.00 ; bill 

 1.66-2.00. Western U. S., southerly ; N. in the Pacific coast region through California to Ore- 

 gon, and in the interior to Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and southwestern Kansas; E. to portions 

 of Oklahoma and western and southeastern Texas ; S. through much of Mexico, including 

 Lower California ; a common resident in most of its U. S. range. A bird of remarkable aspect, 

 noted for its swiftness of foot ; aided by its wings held as outriggers, it taxes the horse in a race ; 

 feeds on fruits, reptiles, insects, land mollusks, sometimes small mammals and birds. Nest in 

 bushes or low trees ; a rather slight structure of twigs, with or without lining of various finer 

 materials, as if the birds were just learning how to build, with a diameter of about a foot, and 

 a depth of half as much ; occasionally, an old nest of some other bird is appropriated. Eggs 

 indefinitely few or many, 2 to 12 in a nest, perhaps not all laid by the same 9 > ordinarily 4 to 

 6, 7, 8, or 9, ovate or elliptical, white in ground color with an overlying chalky film whicli 

 may take a slight yellowish tint, ranging in length from 1.45 to 1.75, averaging L55 X 1-20. 

 They are laid at considerable intervals : incubation begins as soon as a few are deposited, and 



