SIT) Mr. O. Sal villus Five Months' Birds' -ncstimj 



92. CucuLUS CANORUs. (Cuckoo.) 



In the Warcgra country, near Sidi Youssef, towards the cud 

 of March I saw several Cuckoos^ one of which I shot. I have 

 no recollection of having either met with it or seen it subse- 

 quently. 



93. OxYLOPHUS GLANDARius. (Great Spotted Cuckoo.) 

 Mr. Hewitson, quoting Mr. Tristram, has given an account of 



the breeding of this bird {vide 'Ibis/ vol. i. p. 7G), to which a few 

 additional remarks of my own may not be here out of place. I 

 wiis unfortunately the one of the party that saw least of this bird ; 

 therefore I can only add a little information as to the manner in 

 which our eggs were obtained, and, I am sorry to say, nothing to 

 the general habits of the bird. I first observed it in the Waregra 

 country, near the Tunisian frontier, after which we lost sight of 

 it till the middle of May, when our attention was drawn to the 

 fact of its existence in the neighbourhood in which we were then 

 located, by the information brought by Mr. Tristram fi-om Batna. 

 On the morning of the 20th of May, an Arab brought us two 

 eggs which corresponded so well with the egg Mr. Tristram had 

 previously obtained, that our expectations were raised to the 

 highest pitch. A few hours after, another egg was brought from 

 another quarter ; and in the evening of the same day, four more. 

 With none of these eggs were any of the Pica viauritanica. On 

 blowing them, the first two proved to be about half-incubated, and 

 the zygodactylic structure of foot was clearly visible ; the others 

 were fresh. I may add, that on taking each of the Arabs to my 

 box of skins, each separately selected a Common Cuckoo, and 

 showed wherein the Great Spotted Cuckoo differed. There was 

 no skin of O. glandai'ius in the box. On the 20th of May, 

 therefore, we had no doubt that we had the eggs of this Cuckoo. 

 On May 25th, IMr. Simpson was taken, by an Arab who had 

 been in the habit of collecting for us, and who lived in a camp 

 not far from ours, to a nest, in which he found three eggs 

 corresponding exactly to those we had previously obtained, Mr. 

 Simpson did not see the birds near, and at the time supposed, 

 from the fact of the nest being so close to the Arab tents, that 

 the eggs had been put there by the man who showed it to him, 



