214> CUCULIM. 



Mr. Thompson's observations on the occurrence of these 

 four examples are thus recorded in the ninth volume of the 

 Annals of Natural History : " The specimen obtained near 

 Bray was shown to me by Mr. Glennon, bird-preserver, 

 Dublin, and I agree with Mr. Ball in considering it iden- 

 tical in species with his own. This was, with that gentle- 

 man's usual liberality, entrusted to me when about to visit 

 London in the spring of 1835, when I compared it with 

 the specimen presented by Lord Cawdor to the British 

 Museum, and found them to be of the same species. Be- 

 fore leaving home, I had purchased in Belfast a Yellow- 

 billed American Cuckoo from a person who had shot it at 

 Long Island (United States), and at a meeting of the Zoo- 

 logical Society, exhibited this bird and Mr. Ball's for the 

 purpose of showing their specific identity. It was con- 

 sidered desirable to look as critically as possible to these 

 birds, on account of the singular fact of their appearance 

 in this hemisphere. Ornithologists can hardly believe that 

 they cross the Atlantic. Temminck conjectures that this 

 Cuckoo must breed in the north of Europe, whence indivi- 

 duals migrated to the British Islands. But our knowledge 

 of their occurrence here only, and in the more western 

 parts (Ireland, "Wales, and Cornwall), in addition to the 

 fact, that at the very period of their being met with, the 

 species is, as we learn from Wilson and Audubon, in course 

 of migration in the western hemisphere, seems to me pre- 

 sumptive evidence of their having really crossed the ocean. 

 So far north as Labrador, Audubon has seen this bird in 

 summer." 



The beak is as long as the head ; both mandibles slightly 

 curved, the upper one brownish black inclining to yellow at 

 the base ; the under mandible yellow, except at the extreme 

 point, which is nearly black ; the irides hazel ; the top of the 

 head, back of the neck, the back, the wing-coverts, quill- 



