VI CUCULIDAE 
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with a lateral hole; it is placed in a tree, a thorny bush, or a 
tuft of herbage. The three to six oval eggs are white or bluish 
with a readily-stained chalky coating; the young are soon able to 
skulk among the foliage. C. towlow is held sacred in Madagascar. 
Sub-fam. 3. Phoenicophainae.— Taccocua sirkee, the Indian 
Sirkeer, has somewhat similar habits, but makes a flat nest. It is 
olive-brown above, relieved by black and white, and rufous below. 
Coua is pecuhar to Madagascar, C. caerulea having loose blue 
plumage, glossed with violet on the tail, and dark blue naked 
orbits ; but the other species are more olive or grey, with black or 
rufous on the head, throat, or mantle. The large, shy members of 
this handsome genus frequent the edges of forests ; but whereas five 
species fly heavily and chinb well, jumping from branch to branch 
with elevated rectrices, occasionally assisted by their beaks, the 
remaining seven rarely leave the ground, where they run about with 
the tail trailing. The note is a harsh “tashu” or a sharp “ turruh”; 
the food consists of seeds, insects, worms, small mammals, birds, 
and molluscs—the last broken on stones; the nest of twigs and fibres 
is placed in high trees, and contains two or three white eggs.’ 
Saurothera, Hyetornis, and Piaya are the “ Rain-birds” of the 
Bahamas and Antilles, the latter genus extending to Bolivia and 
Argentina. They are inactive, wary birds, which hide and creep 
about with outspread tails when in the trees, but are more at ease 
upon the ground; the cry is a loud harsh scream or cackle; the 
food consists of insects, berries, lizards, and mice; the flat nest 
contains two or three white eggs. 2. cayana is reddish-brown 
above with a violet tinge, and grey below with pinkish throat ; 
the tail shewing a subterminal black bar and a white tip, and the 
bare orbits being red. Phoenicophaés pyrrhocephalus of Ceylon 
is dark green, with bluish wings, blackish head and chest, tail 
varied with white, and white breast; the forehead and sides of 
the head being red and rugose. It is a fruit-eating forest species, 
said to be parasitic, though the allied Rhopodytes of they Indian 
Region lays two or three white eggs in a slight nest of sticks 
and leaves, while the pugnacious Rhamphococcyx calorhynchus, 
the “foreteller by day” of Celebes, builds a similar structure.” 
Sub-fam. 4. Neomorphinae.— Geococcyx mexicanus, the curious 
Chapparal-Coeck or Road-runner of the South-Western United 
States and Mexico, frequents thinly-wooded country, hilly cactus- 
1 Cf. Sibree, Zbis, 1891, pp. 218-219. 2 Cf. Meyer, ut supra (p. 356). 
