SURNICULUS. 



broadly banded alternately with white and metallic green or 

 bronze ; under tail-coverts green, with a few white bars. 



Female and immature male. Crown and back of neck pale 

 rufous, generally with white and dark brown bars ; back, wings, 

 and tail metallic green, much tinged with yellow or coppery 

 bronze ; quills brown, each with a rufous patch on the inner web ; 

 median tail-feathers broadly tipped with coppery brown ; outer 

 tail-feathers barred chestnut and black and tipped white, on the 

 outermost pair the chestnut is partly replaced by white ; lower 

 parts barred white and copper, more broadly on the abdomen. 



The young has the head and neck rufous all round, but barred 

 below. 



Bill bright orange-yellow, tipped black ; irides red-brown ; legs 

 and feet dark brownish green. 



Length 7 ; tail 2*9 ; wing 4-4 ; tarsus *6 ; bill from gape '85. 



Distribution. The Himalayas, below about 4000 feet, as far 

 west as Kumaun, also Assam and the hills to the southward, 

 Manipur, throughout Burma, Siam, and the Malay Peninsula to 

 Sumatra and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands ; almost every- 

 where rare. Although the species is said to have been originally 

 brought from Ceylon, and is stated by Blyth and Jerdon to have 

 been procured in Central India (probably Chutia Nagpur), its 

 occurrence in the Indian Peninsula and Ceylon must be regarded 

 as very doubtful. 



Habits, $~c. According to Davison this Cuckoo has a fine clear 

 whistling call of three notes, rapidly uttered. It feeds entirely on 

 insects (in Assam, according to Mr. Cripps, on ants), it keeps to 

 high branches of trees in forests, and calls on moonlight nights as 

 well as in the day. Hume attributes to the present species 

 a nearly uniform pale pinkish chocolate egg, found in the nest of 

 Stachyrhidopsis ruficeps, and measuring *S by "62. 



Genus SURNICULUS, Lesson, 1831. 



The present genus is remarkable for its extraordinary resem- 

 blance in structure and coloration to a Drongo or King-Crow 

 (Dicrurus). The plumage is almost entirely black, and the tail 

 forked, owing to the lateral rectrices being turned outwards ; the 

 extent to which they diverge is variable, and the median rectrices 

 are straight. All the tail-feathers are nearly equal in length, except 

 the outermost pair, which are much shorter. In other respects 

 there is no important difference from Cacomantis, except that the 

 young only differ from the adults in having a few white spots and 

 less glossy plumage. 



The genus ranges throughout the greater part of the Oriental 

 region, a single species occurring in India. 



1117. Surniculus lugubris. The Dronyo Cuckoo. 



Cuculus lugubris, Horsf. Tr. Linn. Soc. xiii, p. 179 (1821). 

 Pseudonris dicruroides, Hodgs. J. A. 8. B. viii, p. 136 (1839). 

 Cuculus dicruroides, Jerdon, Madr. Jour. L. S. xi, p. 221 (1840) ; 



