THE EUROPEAN CUCKOO. 103 



Suborder COCCYGES Z Y G O D A CTY L^E. 



Family CUCULID^E. 

 Subfamily CUCULIN^). 



Genus CUCULUS, Linn. 



488. CUCULUS CANORUS. 

 THE EUROPEAN CUCKOO. 



Cuculus canorus, Linn. Si/st. Nat. i. p. 168 ; Jerd. B. Ind. i. p. 322 ; Hume, Ncste 

 and Ei/t/s, p. 133 ; Wold. Trans. Zool. Soc. viii. p. 115 ; Hume, S. F. iii. p. 78 ; 

 HI. B. Burin, p. 79; Hume, S. F. iv. p. 288 ; Wardlaw Ramsay, Ibis, 1877, 

 p. 4oS ; David et Oust. Ois. Chine, p. 65 ; Legge, Birds Ceylon, p. 221 ; Anders. 

 Yunnan Exped. p. 586 ; Dresser, Birds Eur. v. p. 199, pi. ; Hume fy Dav. S. F. 

 vi. p. 156; Hume, S. F. viii. p. 88; Scully, S. F. viii. p. 253; Oates, S. F. x. 

 p. 192. 



Description. Male and female. The whole upper plumage ashy blue ; 

 the wings brown, barred with white on the inner webs ; tail ashy brown, 

 tipped with white and spotted with white along the shafts ; sides of the 

 head, chin, throat and upper breast clear pale ashy ; remainder of lower 

 plumage pale fulvous, narrowly barred with black ; under tail-coverts with 

 hardly any bars or marks. 



The young bird has the whole upper plumage, wings and tail barred 

 with ferruginous and the feathers tipped white, and the whole lower 

 plumage is white barred with brown. 



Bill dusky horn, yellowish at the base and edges ; gape orange-yellow ; 

 iris and legs yellow. The young have the iris brown ; edges of the eyelids 

 yellow ; eyelids plumbeous ; mouth deep orange ; upper mandible dark 

 brown ; lower mandible pale green ; legs yellow ; claws yellowish brown. 



Length 13 inches, tail 7, wing 8, tarsus *8, bill from gape 1*2. The 

 female is rather smaller. 



The European Cuckoo is of smaller size in Burmah, but does not 

 otherwise differ from the European bird. 



This well-known Cuckoo is tolerably abundant from August to February 

 round about the towns of Pegu and Kyeikpadein and probably throughout 

 the Pegu Division, for I procured a specimen at Prome in November 



