THE CALIFORNIA CUCKOO. 453 
becoming lighter on continued exposure. Av. size, 1.31 X.94 (33.3 X 23.9). 
Season: June-August; one brood. 
General Range.—\WVestern temperate North America from northern Lower 
California north to southern British Columbia, east to New Mexico and western 
Texas, and south over tablelands of Mexico. 
Range in Washington.—Rare summer resident, chiefly west of Cascades. 
Authorities.—[“Yellow-billed cuckoo” Johnson, Rep. Gov. W. T., 1884 
(1885), 22]. Lawrence, Auk, Vol. [X., No. 1, Jan. 1892, p. 44. T.(?) Lt. Dt. 
Tey, 18}. 1B. 
Specimens.—(U. of. W.) Proy. E. 
IT IS possible that these birds are really more numerous in Wash- 
ington, west of the Cascades, than is generally supposed. They are, how- 
ever, extremely shy and retiring in their habits, and very local in distribution. 
The latter characteristic is carried to such an extent that they may almost 
be said to colonize. For example, the only place they may be found with 
certainty, near Tacoma, is in a small area well within the city limits and 
surrounded by houses. In this small space four or five pairs may be found 
at any time during the summer. 
Their harsh krow-krow-krow-krow, and the more plaintive kru-kru, 
kru-kru, is most often heard along the outskirts of some swamp encircled 
by a heavy growth of brush and small conifers mixed with deciduous trees. 
From the krow-krow note the birds have gained the name Rain Crow, popular 
superstition pointing out the fact that it usually rains soon afterward (an 
occurrence not at all unlikely to happen in western Washington, irrespective 
of the suggestion of the Cuckoo). 
Their food consists entirely of caterpillars, spiders, and other insects, 
this being perhaps the only bird to make war extensively upon the tent- 
caterpillar. The poem, “He sucks little birds’ eggs to make his voice 
clear,” etc., applies only to the Cuckoo of Europe. Small birds, it is true, 
are very often seen in pursuit of a Cuckoo, but this must be purely on 
account of its close resemblance in form to that of their arch-enemy, the 
Sharp-shinned Hawk. 
The nest is rather a frail structure, tho much more bulky than nests 
of the Black-billed or Yellow-billed Cuckoo. It is placed from four to 
ten feet from the ground, usually nearer ten, and is most often built against 
the trunk of a baby fir. The materials used consist of coarse dead twigs, 
heavily lined with coarse tree-moss and sprays of dead fir needles. 
The eggs are two or three in number, most often three, and are laid 
from the second week in June to the first of July. They are a pale bluish 
green in color, overlaid with a light chalky deposit, somewhat like that found 
on Cormorant eggs. In shape they vary from long to rounded oval, and 
