327. Mr. H. Seebohm on the Ornithology of Siberia. 
generally repeated two or three times in succession. The 
bird was very wild, and I only succeeded in shooting two of 
them, both females—one an old bird in grey plumage, the 
other in the red plumage of the first year. This Cuckoo is 
almost an exact miniature of our bird, though the bill is 
slightly larger than that of the common European Cuckoo, 
and the barring on the underparts somewhat more distinct. 
If it had not been for the difference in voice, I should have 
scarcely supposed it to be more than a small race of our bird. 
The wings measure 7°6 in. 
Cucu.us striatus, Drapiez. 
*“Cuculus striatus, Drapiez,” Jerdon, B. Ind. 1. p. 328. 
““Cuculus optatus, Gould,” Radde, Amurl. 11. p. 135. 
In Dresser’s exhaustive article on the Common Cuckoo in 
the ‘ Birds of Europe,’ of which he has kindly lent me the 
proof sheets, he refers to the nearly allied species. Two of 
these come into my Siberian region, Cuculus optatus, Gould 
apud Radde,and Cuculus sparverioides, Vigors apud Schrenck. 
Dresser identifies C. optatus with C. himalayanus. . In this I 
cannot agree with him. After comparing Jerdon’s excellent 
description of the note of the Himalayan species with Radde’s 
minute account of the note of the Amoor bird, I think we 
may positively state that C. optatus, Gould apud Radde, is 
not C. himalayanus, Vigors apud Jerdon. The dimensions 
given by Radde are much too large for those of C. himalay- 
anus, and agree best with those of C. striatus. After exam- 
ining the cuckoos in the British Museum, Ido not feel much 
doubt that Radde’s bird was a specimen of C. striatus. 
CucuLus HYPERYTHRUS, Gould. 
Von Schrenck gives an excellent figure of what he thinks, 
somewhat doubtfully, to be an immature male of Cuculus 
sparverioides, Vigors. I have two skins lately brought from 
Japan by Mr. Heywood Jones, which agree exactly with 
Schrenck’s plate. They appear to me to be much too small 
for C. sparverioides; and I am inclined to identify both the 
Amoor and the Japan birds with the Cuculus hyperythrus of 
Gould, described by him in the P. Z.8. of 1856, p. 96, and 
figured in the ‘ Birds of Asia’ (pt. 8). 
[18] 
