30 SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 



The Bronze Cuckoo [Chalcococcyx (Lamprococcyx) plagosus]. 

 Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 623, No. 3S3 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. Ill, No. 235. 



Australia has a number of species of cuckoo in her bird fauna, 

 but most of them are shy, retiring biids that are seldom noticed by the 

 casual observer. 



This pretty little cuckoo is one of the best known of the family, from its 

 habit of coming into our gardens and orchards looking for insects. It is a 

 great favourite with vine-growers, because it is one of the very few birds 

 that will eat the vine-moth caterpillar (Agarista glycine), which often does 

 so much damage to the foliage and young grapes in the early part of the 

 season. 



It is not uncommon about the suburban gardens near Sydney, but is 

 a quiet, shy bird, flitting about among the vines and trees hunting for 

 insects, seldom when feeding giving its gentle whistle-like call note. 

 Wheelwright, author of the " Bush Wanderings of a Naturalist/' published 

 in 1861, gives many notes on the birds in Victoria, and says : " The Bronze 

 Cuckoos were very common in the honeysuckle scrub ; they have a very loud 

 cry for their size, resembling that of the English wryneck." The female 

 has the true cuckoo instinct of finding a foster-mother for her offspring, and, 

 laying aside all motherly feelings, hunts round until she finds the nest of 

 either the little Blue Wren or the Silver-eye in which she places her olive- 

 green eggs, and flies away with no family cares to worry her. 

 . Like many of the other cuckoos, however, she has a large list of other 

 small birds that she favours with her eggs. Campbell says, " She usually 

 chooses the covered-in nests of the Acanthizae (tits) tribe, but other species 

 of builders of dome-shaped or secluded nests are chosen,'' and he gives a I's.t 

 of twenty-seven small birds, of various families, in the nests of which this 

 cuckoo's eggs have been recorded. 



In this bird the scientific, as well as the popular, name is well chosen, as 

 the generic name is composed of two Greek words (Lampro and coccyx), the 

 first meaning shining and the second a cuckoo ; it has been recently 

 placed in the allied genus Chalcococcyx, but is better known under the 

 old name. 



In the Bronze Cuckoo we have a very friendly and useful bird in our 

 gardens and orchards, but its value is discounted to a great extent by the 

 fact that it is a parasite in the nests of so many other useful little birds. 



The Fantailed Cuckoo (Cacomantis fiabelliformis Latham). 



Gould's Handbook, vol. II, p. 568, No. 451 ; Leich's Bird Book, p. 109, No. 230. 



This appears to have been one of the first Australian cuckoos to attract the 

 attention of the early settlers in the bush. It was called the Lesser Cuckoo, to 

 distinguish it from the Pallid Cuckoo (Cuculus pallidus), which was known 

 as the Greater Cuckoo. It must also have been a common bird known to 

 collectors, for it had been described under eight different scientific names at 



