390 CUCULIDiE. 



doubt of the correctness of my identification. This egg measures 

 0-8G in length b)^ 0-77. 



"In 1876 I extracted an egg from the oviduct of a female 

 Coccijstes jacohinus shot off the telegraph-wires at the station of 

 Jusra, which was the counterpart of the pair I speak of. The 

 same season I got a similar egg along with three of A. malcohni 

 and immediately recognized it. 



" All four eggs were fresh, the parasitical one quite so. When- 

 ever I have a lot of eggs, 1 always puncture them first and bore 

 them afterwards. In doing this I could not help noticing that 

 the Cuckoo's eggs I'equired twice as much pressure to prick, and 

 seemed to have a very much thicker shell, the albumen was also of 

 a beautifid blue-green colour, that of the Babblers colourless. 

 This egg measures 0-94 byO"7o, and has so thickasliell that it has 

 some species of entozoa embedded in a double spiral, in a sort of 

 calcareous deposit at one end."' 



Colonel (t. F. L. Marsliall says: — " An egg which T took from 

 the oviduct of a female in July was nearly round, of a deep blue 

 colour, and with a very hard thick shell ; I do not know if this 

 latter character is constant, but if so it would serve at once to 

 distinguish these eggs from eggs of the Grateroin. It has not, 1 

 believe, been noticed before.'" 



Mr. J. Davidson tells us that this Cuckoo is " very common in all 

 the scrub jungles round Dhulia, laying in the nests of A. malcohni 

 and ^-1. caudata; from the eggs of the latter its eggs are readily 

 distinguishable." 



Mr. Eliodes W. Morgan, writing from South India, says of this 

 Cuckoo : — " It deposits a single egg of a very brilliant greenisii 

 blue, the greenish tinge predominating, in tlie nest oi' MaJacorcrcufs 

 (/risetif!. Both extremities of the egg are alike in shape. Lays 

 from March to May. Before di'opiiing its own egg it always 

 ejects one of the eggs of the rightful owner." 



Colonel W. Vincent Legge, writing of this species in Ceylon, 

 says : — '' An egg ready for expulsion was found in a bird of this 

 species killed last November at Puttalam, AVestern Province. It 

 is now in the Museum of the K.A. Society of Ceylon, and is of a 

 pale sky-blue coloiu", measuring 0-95 by 0*74. Mr. Holdsvvorth, 

 P. Z. 8. 1872, p. 432, supposes it to lay in the nest of Malacon'rcus 

 slrlains, and Layard found a young bird under the care of a pair 

 of these Babblers." 



The eggs of this species are well fitted for dejiosit in the nests 

 of the various species of Babblers {Anjya and CraUropus), usually 

 chosen as fostei'-parents for its young by the Crested Pied Cuckoo. 

 In colour they are a spotless blue, darker or lighter in different 

 specimens ; but all are highly glossy and closely resemble the eggs 

 of Argija caudata, in whose nest also this bird occasionally de- 

 posits its eggs. Even from the eggs of Craterupns niulcobni, in 

 whose nest they are in Upper India most commoidy fouiul, it is 

 only by their somewhat diminutive size and very round oval shape 

 lliat tiiey can be distinguished. 1'his Babbler itself, however, 



