Mr. W. Thompson on the Birds of Ireland. 225 



This bird was presumed to be a female from its note : it was origi- 

 nally taken from a titlark's nest. Montagu, in the supplement to 

 his ' Ornithological Dictionary,' gives so full and interesting an ac- 

 count of a cuckoo which he kept, that a portion of the above is but 

 a counterpart of his narrative. It seemed to me, however, that all 

 particulars respecting Mr. Templeton's bird were well worthy of 

 being recorded. 



In Holland I have heard the call of the cuckoo in the king's park 

 at the Hague towards the end of May, and in Switzerland, late in 

 June. Its well-known cry was most gratifying to my ear, when on 

 the 16th of May last riding over the bare and wild hills and through 

 the forest between Constantinople and Belgrade *. When about 

 Navarino on the 28th of April, a small flock of seven or eight birds 

 which were believed to be cuckoos flew near to me, proceeding in a 

 northerly direction, but the call was wanting to prove the species. 



Yellow-billed American Cuckoo, Coccyzus America- 

 nus, Bonap.t 



The first notice of the occurrence of this species in the British 

 Islands, and indeed in the Eastern hemisphere, is due to Mr. R. 

 Ball of Dublin, who contributed a note upon the subject to the first 

 number of the 'Field Naturalists' Magazine.' He states, that when at 

 Youghal (co. Cork) in 1825, the butler of a neighbouring gentle- 

 man brought him a specimen of this bird a few minutes after its 

 being shot, and when still warm and bleeding. In the same com- 

 munication, dated from Dublin Castle, Oct. 20, 1832, Mr. Ball 

 mentions a second example as having been recently killed near 

 Bray, a few miles from Dublin. About the same period (" autumn 

 1832 ") one was shot on the estate of Lord Cawdor, in Wales. Mr. 

 Yarrell mentions his having received a communication respecting 

 the occurrence of another, in Cornwall, but no date is given. (' Br. 

 Birds,' vol. ii. p. 190.) These are, I believe, all the recorded instances 

 of the species having been met with in the British Islands. The 

 last two parts of Temminck's ' Manuel,' published in 1835 and 1840, 

 do not contain any notice of its appearance on the European conti- 

 nent. 



The specimen obtained near Bray was shown to me by Mr. Glen- 

 non, bird-preserver, Dublin, and I agree with Mr. Ball in consider- 

 ing it identical in species with his own. This was, with that gen- 

 tleman's usual liberality, entrusted to me when about to visit Lon- 

 don in the spring of 1835, when I corajjared it with the specimen 

 presented by Lord Cawdor to the British Museum, and found them 

 to be of the same species. Before leaving home I had purcliased in 

 Belfast a yellow-billed x\merican cuckoo from a person who had shot 

 it at Long Island (United States), and at a meeting of the Zoological 

 Society exhibited tliis bird and Mr. Ball's for the purpose of showing 

 their specific identity. 



* The Belgrade of Lady Mary Wovtley Montagu. 



f See Temminck's ' Manuel,' part 3. j). 277, for remarks both on the ge- 

 neric and spocilic names. 



