222 NOTES ON THE 



about a week or ten days, and they mate very soon after her 

 arrival. Its habits differ from the other mostly in its prefer- 

 ence for open places, and cultivated fields, while that is more 

 reclusive, occupying the forests mainly. 



The nest of this species is quite uniformly located in a bush 

 or small tree, and is constructed of roots, twigs, leaves, cat- 

 kins and moss.* They lay four eggs, also greenish-blue, but 

 of considerable darker shade than those of the Yellow-billed 

 Cuckoo. 



The notes sent me by correspondents nearly all testify to 

 the presence of this bird during the season of incubation. 



Mr. Washburn found it still in the Red river valley about 

 the first of September. It generally remains until from the 

 15th to the 20th of that month, and disappears as silently as it 

 came. 



Dr. Hvoslef reports it at Lanesboro on the 25th of May, when 

 of course it was presumptively breeding. Professor Herrick 

 made a note of this species in his collections for the museum 

 of the State University in 1875. Indeed it is a common species 

 of its genus. 



It prefers the vicinity of damp, shaded places, in the borders 

 of wooded tracts, more commonly, but is often found in the 

 fields and gardens, or on grass patches, surrounded by 

 thickets. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 



Bill entirely black; upper parts generally of a metallic green- 

 ish-olive, ashy towards the base of the bill; beneath pure white, 

 with a brownish yellow tinge on the throat; inner webs of the 

 quills tinged with cinnamon; under surface of all the tail 

 feathers hoary ash-gray; all beneath the central on either side, 

 suffused with darker, to the short, bluish- white, and not well 

 defined tip; a naked red skin around the eye; iris hazel. 



Length, 12; wing. 5; tail, 6.50. 



Habitat, eastern North America. 



*Several instances have now been reported to me, and I have observed one person- 

 ally, where the nest was placed on the trunk of a decaying log, and the one I found 

 consisted only of dry sticks and catkins of the maple, while those reported embraced 

 roots, twigs and grass in their structure. In another instance I saw a Black-billed 

 Cuckoo sitting in the middle of an obsolete cow path in the woods, and as it did not 

 fly at sight of me, I approached it cautiously, thinking perhaps it was wounded, and I 

 could not have been more than ten feet from it when it threw out one wing and the 

 coi-responding leg, and fluttered along just out of my reach until thirty feet away 

 before it disappeared in the thicket, but I had not been deceived, for two character- 

 istic eggs had been left completely exposed on the spot she left. All indications of a 

 nest were absent, and the eggs were fresh, as their blowing afterwards proved. 



I looked carefully for the remains of a nest possibly destroyed by an enemy, but I 

 could find none, nor was I successful in finding a mate near. 



This was on the 14th of May, 1877. It was remarkable, and quite inexplicable to me. 



