LAMI'KOI'OCCY.X. 



19 



gFjN the " History of the Collections contained in the Natural History Department of the 

 -L. British Museum, Birds,"' r3r. R. Bowdler Sharpe informs us that the type of Lampn'mccyx 

 phh^osiis, from which Latham took his description of Cmiilm pld-^osas in his "Index Ornithologicus," 

 is a drawing; of \\'atlint;'s in the possession of the Trustees of the ISritish Museum. 



The ultra-Australian ran^e of the ]!ron/e Cuck(jo, according to Captain G. E. Shelley in 

 the " Catalogue of Birds in the British Museum," I extends to Southern New Guinea, New 

 I'.ritain, New Ireland, and the Solomon Islands. In the .\ustralian Museum Collection there 

 are specimens from nearly e\ery part of the coastal districts of the comment, but by far they 

 are in excess from Eastern Australia. There is a specimen from Cape "N'ork, obtained by the 

 late i\h. |. A. TJKjrpe ; another from Cardwell procured by Mr. K. Broadbent, and from there 

 numerous specimens as far south as Tasmania. There is also an adult male and a young male 

 procured by Mr. George Masters at King George's Sound, Western Australia, in September 

 and December, 1868, respectively. ( )ne of the most interesting specimens is the skin of an adult 



male presented by Dr. Mackinlay. This bird flew 

 on board when forty miles east of Lord Howe Island, 

 in i8iS2. It is a remarkable fact that in a series of 

 twenty adult skins now before me, nineteen of them 

 are sexed as males. 



The countless numbers of injurious insects and 

 their larva-, especially the latter, which the Bronze 

 Cuckoo destroys every year are almost incredible ; 

 and the service it renders to the orchardist and 

 viticulturist should secure for this extremely useful 

 bird absolute protection. T'ortunately it is distributed 

 over the greater portion of the .Vustralian Continent 

 and Tasmania. In a large number of stomachs of 

 these birds examined, caterpillars formed by far the 

 staple article of diet. Mr. F. Baker, of Granville, 

 near Sydney, informed me that on the morning of the 

 i6th December, 1895, he saw a Bronze Cuckoo pick 

 off and eat a lari^e number of caterpillars from his grape vmes, and that it is the only species 

 he has seen eat the iarvir of the \'ine Moth (Agarista glycine.) To orchardists it is extremely 

 useful, for it picks and eats caterpillars off fruit trees, more fre(]uently when the fresh young 

 leaves are bursting forth, which renders their foliage more liable to attack than at any other 

 time, .\lthough usually shunning the more frecjuented haunts of man, it may be met with 

 occasionally in the parks and gardens of Sydney, and sometimes its notes may be heard in the 

 Fig trees in the Museum grounds. 



In .New- South Wales it may be found throuLjhout the year, but is less in evidence during 

 the winter months, as it does not call so freiiuently, but seeks and obtains its food in a quiet 

 and unobtrusive manner, hopping noiselessly and fluttering from leafy spray to spray in the 

 same way as the different species of Mdithveptus and Ptilotis, and clinging and hanging in every 

 concei\able position. At Dobroyde on the 24th July, 1891, I watched for a quarter of an hour 

 one of these birds quietly feeding in a low gum tree near my house, and on passing the tree an 

 hour later, it was still there feeding in the leafy sprays of the tree. During the whole of the 

 time I was watching it I never heard it utter a sound. The Bronze Cuclcoo appears to be 

 extremely local in habits, leading a solitary life as a rule during the winter months, and it is 

 only in the breeding season that a pair or more are seen associated together. At Roseville during 

 September, 1908, in light drizzling rainy weather, a Bronze Cuckoo did not venture out of the 



IIRONZE CUCKOO. 



p. 122 (lyob). t Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus., Vol. XIX., p, 29^ (iSgi). 



