YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO 



AMERICAN YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO VIRGINIAN CUCKOO- 

 CAROLINA CUCKOO COW-BIRD RAIN-CROW. 



PLATE LVI. 



Cuculus americanus, . . . LINNAEUS. 



Coccyzus americanus, . . . LINNAEUS. JENYNS. 



THE Yellow-billed American Cuckoo has occurred about 

 five times in the British Isles, but Mr. Howard Saunders 

 doubts whether these examples crossed the Atlantic without 

 human assistance. Unlike our Cuckoo, it rears its own 

 young. 



The nest is commenced about the end of the first week in 

 May. Dresser says the nest is a slight structure resembling 

 that of the dove, and built of dry twigs, so as to form a 

 scanty platform lined with a few grass bents and straws. It 

 is placed on the branch of a tree, and is made of small sticks 

 and twigs, intermixed with weeds and blossoms ; Meyer says 

 that it is made of roots and wool. 



The eggs, three, four, or five, generally four in number, 

 are of a uniform delicate blue colour, and of a duly propor- 

 tionate size. As if, however, every kind of Cuckoo must 

 have something peculiar about it, the one before us does not 

 begin to hatch its eggs when all have been laid, but com- 

 mences at once with the first, the necessary consequence of 



