XXXI 
THE CUCKOO FAMILY 
(Cuculide) } 
Most of the cuckoo family live in a hotter 
climate than ours, but we have a few of them. 
They are beautiful birds, with some peculiar 
ways. 
Cuckoos are rather slim in form, with very long 
tails, and bills a little curved. Their toes are 
divided like woodpeckers’ toes, two turned for- 
ward and two back. In the Eastern States we have 
but two, the yellow-billed and the black-billed. 
Best known in the Hast is the YELLOW-BILLED 
Cuckoo, and in California the Western Yellow- 
billed, or California, Cuckoo. 
This bird has several names. In some places 
he is called the rain crow, and in other places the 
wood pigeon; but of course he is neither a 
crow nor a pigeon. He isa graceful bird, with 
plumage like satin. He is a soft brown above 
and white below, but he is so shy that he is not 
1 See Appendix, 24, 
