COCCTSTES. 391 



sometimes, I am inclined to believe, lays abnormally small eggs of 

 this shape ; so that the only specimens that I really fully rely on are 

 those which have been taken out of the oviduct of the female : 

 these are very round ovals, recalling in shape the eggs of the Bee- 

 eaters, very glossy and of a delicate full-sky blue. Those obtained 

 from the nests to and from which the bird had been watched are 

 exactly similar, but of a somewhat darker and deeper hue. 



The eggs vary in length from O9 to O98 inch, and in breadth 

 from O72 to 0*82 inch ; but the average of a series is O94 by 0'7J 

 inch. 



Coccystes coromandus (Linn.). The Crested Red-winged Cuckoo. 



Coccystes coromandus (Linn.), Jerd. B. Ltd. i, p. 341 ; Hume, 

 Draft N. $ E. no. 213. 



An egg that I possess of the Crested Eed- winged Cuckoo was 

 obtained for me by my friend, the late Mr. Irwin, in Tipperah. 

 It was extracted from the oviduct of the female. In shape it is a 

 very broad oval, and in texture fine and glossy. In colour it is a 

 moderately pale, somewhat greenish blue, uniform throughout, 

 without any specks or spots ; although considerably larger, it in 

 other respects closely resembles some eggs of C.jacobinus. 



It measures 1*05 by 0*92 inch. 



Mr. Mandelli sent me a nest in which he says that four fresh 

 eggs of this species were found oh the 20th May, at Namtchu in 

 Native Sikhim. It was placed 011 the branches of a very large tree 

 at a height of twenty-five feet from the ground. A fifth egg was 

 extracted from the oviduct of the parent-bird. All the five eggs 

 are precisely alike, and like others that I have myself extracted 

 from the oviduct of this species. I cannot, however, for a 

 moment believe that the nest really belonged to this Cuckoo. She 

 was shot on it no doubt when about to lay the fifth egg, having 

 selected the nest of some, bird, probably some Babbler, whose eggs 

 closely resemble her own. The nest is a moderately deep cup 

 four inches in diameter, composed externally of dry leaves loosely 

 bound together with coarse grass, and lined with fine wire-like 

 twigs, flower-stems, as 1 guess, of some herbaceous plant. The 

 nest is very similar to some I have seen of Garrulcuc momliger, and 

 jii^aiu of (T. leucoloplu.i.s. 



Captain Feilden remarks : " This bird is the commonest 

 Cuckoo at Thayetrnyo ; in the thicker parts of the jungle every 

 bamboo-filled valley contains one or more pairs. They arrive in 

 the beginning of the rains, and the young birds do not leave till 

 October. They lay in the nest of the Quaker Thrushes I believe, 

 as I have frequently shot the young bird from the middle of a 

 brood of young Quaker Thrushes, and, as far as I could see from 

 the thickness of the jungle, the old Thrushes were feeding the 

 young Cuckoo. An egg, taken from the nest of a Quaker Thrush, 

 that I believe to have belonged to this bird was very round and a 



