CUCULID^ CHEYSOCOCCYX 191 



S. A. Mus.), Pretoria dist. October (Haagner), Potchefstroom, 

 October, Marcb (Ayres), Bustenburg dist. November (Oates and 

 Barratt) ; Bechuanaland — Bamangwato, November (Buckley) ! 

 Ehodesia — Umfuli river, October (Ayres) ; German south-west 

 Africa — Otniorapa, Ovampoland, January (Andersson) ; Portuguese 

 east Africa — Chicowa on the Zambesi, October (Alexander). 



Habits. — The Didric, so-called by Levaillant from its note, is 

 found in thorn country as well as in forest, and is widely spread 

 over the greater part of South Africa. It has a loud and somewhat 

 plaintive note, heard both by day and night ; the male calls from its 

 conspicuous perch on a bare tree branch, or even on the wing, 

 while the female remains silent as a rule. Insects of various kinds, 

 especially caterpillars, form the bulk of its nourishment ; but Ayres 

 states that on one occasion he found the egg of a sparrow partially 

 digested in the stomach of an individual killed by him ; a possible 

 explanation of this may be that the egg really belonged to the 

 Cuckoo itself, and had been swallowed accidentally while being 

 conveyed in its mouth. 



Levaillant first studied the nesting habits of this Cuckoo, and 

 took no less than eighty-three eggs from the nests of various 

 insectivorous birds, and as he found many of these in small and 

 covered-in nests in which it would be impossible for the Cuckoo to 

 deposit her egg in the usual manner, he believed that the egg was 

 laid in a convenient spot and conveyed to the nest in the mouth of 

 the parent ; moreover, he shot two females actually in the act of so 

 doing, with eggs in their throats. He further states that the eggs 

 are white. Mr. Ayres, on the other hand, states that the eggs are 

 spotted, and that he is certain of this as he took a spotted egg 

 from the ovary of a female, and that the most usual host is the 

 South African Sparrow {Passer arcuatus), the eggs of which are 

 also, as a rule, spotted. 



Mr. Millar tells me that he believes the egg is blue spotted, like 

 that of a sparrow, and that on two occasions he found what he 

 believed to be eggs of this bird in the nest of a Yellow Weaver bird 

 {Hypliantornis suhaurcus), at Willowgrange and Nottingham Koad, 

 in Natal ; close by, in another nest of the same species, was a 

 young Didric, which bad, like the English Cuckoo, ejected his foster 

 brethren. 



Mrs. Barber, Messrs. Jackson and Ivy all state that the egg 

 of this Cuckoo is white and unspotted, while Mr. Fitzsimmons took 

 a verditer-blue egg from the oviduct of a female ; it seems, therefore, 

 probable that the colour and markings of the egg vary possibly 



