CUCULIN. 129 
THE EMERALD CUCKOO. 
Length, 6:5 ,to 7; wing, 425; tail, 3; tarsus, 0°5; bill at 
front, 0°6. 
_ Bill yellow, tipped dusky; irides red brown; feet reddish 
cinereous. 
Above brilliant emerald-green with a rich golden gloss; beneath 
white with cross bars of shining green; tail, with the outer 
feathers barred with white externally. 
Jerdon in his “ Birds of India” states that this lovely Cuckoo 
has been procured rarely in Central India. 
Genus, Coccystes, Goger. 
Head crested; bill slender and cuculine, but more compressed, 
slightly curving at first, suddenly bent down at the tip which 
is entire; nostrils basal, lengthened and ovate, close to edge of 
mandible; wings moderate, slightly rounded; third and fourth 
quills sub-equal, or fourth quill longest; tail long graduated; 
tarsus longer than in cuculus, not feathered; feathers of the 
yump soft. 
Coccystes jacobinus, Bodd, 
212.—Coccystes melanoleucos, Gmel.—Jerdon’s Birds of India, 
Vol. I, p. 839; Butler, Guzerat; Stray Feathers, Vol. III, 
p- 461; Deccan, Stray Feathers, Vol. IX, p. 388; Murray’s 
Vertebrate Zoology of Sind, p. 117; Swinhoe and Barnes, 
Central India ; Ibis, 1885, p. 63. 
THE PrED-CRESTED CucKOO. 
Popiya, Hin. 
_ Length, 13; expanse, 17°5; wing, 5°75; tail, 7; tarsus, 0°98; 
bill at front, 0°75; bill at gape, 1:1. 
Bill black ; irides red-brown ; legs leaden-blue. 
Above, uniform black, with a greenish shine; bases of the 
primaries white, forming a conspicuous wing-spot; all the tail- 
feathers tipped white, broadly, except the central pair, which 
are very narrowly tipped; under-parts dull white; in some, 
especially the females, slightly tinged with fulvescent. 
The nestling plumage is dull black above, and fulvous be- 
neath. 
The Pied-crested Cuckoo occurs as a monsoon visitant through- 
out the district, but is much more common in some places 
than others ; for instance, at Mhow it literally swarms during 
the rains, while at Neemuch it only occurs as a straggler. 
Its eggs resemble somewhat those of C. caudata, in whose 
nests, as well as in those of M. terricolor and malcolmi, they 
are generally deposited, but may be distinguished from the 
former by their somewhat larger size and rounder shape, and 
pioota, these of the latter by being slightly smaller as well as 
rounder, 
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