160 BIRDS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
adults ; under surface of body entirely yellowish white, the lower 
under wing-coverts brown ; bill horn-brown. 
Fig. Levaill. Ois. d’Afr. v. pl. 208. 
143. CoccysTES SERRATUS. Black Crested Cuckoo. 
This species can easily be told from any of the other Crested 
Cuckoos of South Africa by its entirely black colour both above 
and below. 
It is abundant in mimosa bushes throughout the Karroo and 
extends into the Cape peninsula, and has also been received fro2, all 
parts of the colony to the eastward. This bird Vv lgotis ont 
about the new year, whence the name of “ Nieuwejaai; 4 very rare? 
it has acquired among the colonists. It evidently lays at. aay gh 
as we took a mature egg from the body of one that was killed at 
Rondebosch. The egg was white, glossy, and rounded at each end: 
axis, 13’; diam., 11’. The stomach contained caterpillars, 
beetles, maggots, and flies, but the chief mass consisted of termites. 
We found them in considerable abundance at Nel’s Poort, usually in 
pairs, frequenting the trees along the river banks. Mr. Atmore 
writes that the “eggs are white, and usually deposited in the nest 
of the ‘ Geelgat’? (Pycnonotus capensis).” We saw it near Alice, at 
the farm of Barend Woests in March. Mr. H. Bowker writes: “It 
calls frequently during the night, particularly about nine or ten 
o’clock. I have found their eggs and young in the nests of Sigelus 
silens.” 
“Tn Natal,” writes Mr. Ayres, “these birds feed on cater- 
pillars, ants, and other insects, in search of which they hop about 
amongst the thick creepers, principally frequenting small, low, — 
isolated bushes. They are weak on the wing, and do not take long 
flights, but are migratory, arriving in October and leaving in March, 
The gizzard of this bird is most curious, the inner skin is lined with 
hair like the hair of a young mouse, and is quite separate from the 
flesh of the gizzard.’ Mr. Gurney comments on this as follows: 
“Tt will be recollected that a similar appearance of the stomach ~ 
being lined with hair frequently occurs in specimens of ‘Cuculus 
canorus, and that these hairs were ascertained by the late Mr. 
Thompson of Belfast to be those of the larve of the Tiger Moth, on ~ 
which the Cuckoo frequently feeds. (See P, Z. 8. 1834, p. 29.) 
