132 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Description. Brownish gray with bronzy luster; under parts dull 

 white, throat and thighs tinged with pale ash ; wing feathers largely rufous, 

 especially on the inner webs, showing well when wings are spread; tail 

 feathers black conspicuously tipped with white, except the central pair which 

 are the color of the back; bill blackish, except the greater portion of lower 

 mandible which is yellow; feet dark leaden color. 



Length 11.5-12.7 inches; extent 15. 7-17; wing 5.4-5.8; tail 6-6.25; 

 bill about I. 



The slender form, long tail, soft satiny brown back and white breast 

 of both the cuckoos at once distinguish them from our other birds. The 

 present species differs from the Black-billed cuckoo not only in the color 

 of the bill, but more especially in the cinnamon-rufous color of the wings 

 and the blackish tail feathers broadly tipped with white — marks which 

 serve to identify it conclusively at some distance, particularly when flying. 



Distribution. The Yellow-billed cuckoo is a fairly common summer 

 resident of the Carolinian and Transition zones of New York State, more 

 numerous in the southern portion of the State, but entirely absent from 

 the Adirondacks and Catskills, except the outskirts and valleys. It arrives 

 in the spring from the 1st to the 10th of May in the southern counties, 

 and a few days later in the more northern districts, and disappears again 

 between September 20 and October 15 to pass the winter in South America. 

 Soon after its arrival its call is heard from the copses, hedgerows, orchards, 

 swampy thickets and vine-clad hillsides which it chooses to inhabit. 

 This call is not so distinctly enunciated as the note of the European 

 cuckoo, so perfectly imitated by the well-known cuckoo clocks, but, never- 

 theless, of the unmistakable cuckoo quality, consisting of a series of loud 

 and explosive gutterals resembling the syllables kuk-kuk, kuk-kuk, repeated 

 many times and ending with the syllables kyow, kyow, repeated from two 

 to six times. Occasionally it utters a low, somewhat liquid coo, coo, coo, 

 coo, resembling the note of the Least bittern. The former call may be 

 heard for a long distance, but it is often very difficult to determine either 

 how far away it really is or in what direction. 



Except for its loud call this bird is very unobtrusive in habits. One 

 is rarely aware of its presence except by a passing shadow or the rustle 



