CUCDLIN.E. 335 



209. Polyphasia tenuirostris, Gray. 



Cuculus, apud Gray, Hardwickk, 111. lud. Zool., 2, pi. 34, f. 1 



— Blyth, Cat. 347 (iii part)— Horsf., Cat. 1018 (in part)— CAo^a 



bhrouj Beng. 



The Rufous-bellied Cuckoo. 



Descr. — Adult, ashy above, more or less tinged with green ; 

 wings and tail as in the last ; chin, throat, and upper breast, pale 

 ashy, nearly concolorous with the head ; beneath, from the breast, 

 bright rust;f rufous, darkest on the tail-coverts. Some specimens, 

 from the neighbourhood of Calcutta, are without the rufous abdomen, 

 which is pure ashy, with the under tail-coverts white ; but Avhether 

 these are a different state of the same race, or the Southern one, it 

 is impossible to decide. Some few specimens, moreover, have the 

 rufous colour extending as far as the chin. To the east of the Bay 

 of Bengal, grey-bellied specimens have never been met with. 



The young bird is dusky, with a green gloss and with rufous 

 bars ; the tail black, with numerous rusty bars on both webs, white 

 tipped, and with white bars on the inner webs of the outer tail 

 feathers ; beneath, pale rusty with dusky bars, chiefly on the throat 

 and breast, obsolete on the belly. In the rufous phase that colour 

 is more distinct and marked than in similarly coloured specimens 

 of the last ; the abdomen is broadly banded ; the tail very rufous, 

 with few markings and without the white tip or the white bars 

 internally. Dimensions nearly of the last. 



This species or race is found in Lower Bengal, and in all the 

 countries to the East, as Assam, Sylhet, Buimah, and even so far as 

 China. It appears that, in Bengal, where it meets the Indian race, 

 the two interbreed with each other, as in the case of the two Rollers. 

 Blyth says, that in Bengal you meet with every variation and shade 

 of intermediateness. I have lately had an opportunity of observino- 

 this race in Upper Burmah, and found that its note is certainly 

 different from that of tlie Indian bird, being not so plaintive, and 

 indeed somewhat different in character. Svvinhoe, in his Ornithology 

 of Amoy, states that its call is a loud-toned whistle, repeated four 

 times and terminating with a shake. I have never met Avitli this 

 race to the South ; but the few specimens which I obtained of it at 



