226 CUCULIDJE. 



brown above, buff below, the chin and tbroat grey at first, wing- 

 bar and spots at end of tail-feathers buff. 



Bill black, irides red-brown ; legs leaden blue (Jerdon). 



Length 13 ; tail 6*8 ; wing 6 ; tarsus 1*1 ; bill from gape 1*2. 



Distribution. Throughout India from the lower Himalayas, and 

 in Ceylon, ranging from Sind, the Punjab, and Kashmir, to Assam, 

 Cachar, Manipur, and Upper Burma, but not yet observed in 

 Lower Pegu, nor east of the Irrawaddy valley. To the westward 

 this Cuckoo is found almost throughout Africa south of the 

 Sahara. 



Habits, 6fc. Although there is no reason to suppose that this 

 bird migrates at any time of the year out of India, it moves about 

 a good deal at different seasons, and in some parts, as in Sind, 

 Indore, parts of the Deccan, around Calcutta, at Faridpur in 

 Eastern Bengal, and at Shillong in the Khasi hills, it is either 

 met with only during the rains or more abundantly at that period. 

 It feeds on insects, which it not unfrequently takes on the 

 ground. The breeding-season is in July, August, and September, 

 and at this time G. jacobinus is very noisy, frequently uttering its 

 peculiar call, which Jerdon terms a " high-pitched wild metallic 

 note." The female lays in the nest of various species of Crateropus 

 and Argya ; the eggs resemble those of the Babblers, being blue 

 in colour and measuring about -94 by '73. 



1119. Coccystes coromandus. The Eed-ivinged Crested Cuckoo. 



Cuculus coromandus, Linn. Syst. Nat. i, p. 171 (1766). 



Oxylophus coromandus, Jerdon, Madr. Jour. L. S. xi, p. 222 ; Blyth, 



J. A. S. S. xi, p. 920; id. Cat. p. 74; Layard, A. M. N. H. (2) 



xiii, p. 451. 

 Coccystes coromandus, Horsf. fy M. Cat. ii, p. 693 ; Jerdon, S. I. i, 



p. 341 ; Holdsioorth, P. Z. S. 1872, p. 432 ; Godw.-Aust. J.A.S. B. 



xliii, pt. 2, p. 156 ; Blyth $ Wald. Birds Burm. p. 81 ; Hume, 



S. F. iii, p. 82 ; xi, p. 76 : id. Cat. no. 213 ; Hume $ Dav. S. F. 



vi, p. 162; Legge, Birds Ceyl. p. 249; Scully, S. F. viii, p. 257 ; 



Vidal, S. F. ix, p. 55 ; Oates, B. B. ii, p. 117 ; id. in Hume's N. 



fy JE. 2nd ed. ii, p. 391 ; Barnes, Birds Bom. p. 130; Norman, 



Ibis, 1888, p. 400 ; Shelley, Cat. B. M. xix, p. 214. 



Yerra gola kokila, Tel. ; Tseben, Lepcha. 



Coloration. Crown, nape, and sides of head black, the crest- 

 feathers brightly glossed with bluish green; a white half-collar 

 round the back of the neck ; back, scapulars, lesser wing-coverts 

 near the forearm, innermost greater coverts, and tertiaries black, 

 richly glossed with green ; remainder of wings, both coverts and 

 quills, chestnut, tips of quills dusky ; rump and upper tail-coverts 

 black, with a bluish gloss ; tail more purple, the outer feathers 

 slightly tipped white ; chin, throat, and fore-neck pale ferruginous ; 

 breast white, abdomen and flanks ashy brown, under tail-coverts 

 black, with violet gloss like the tail. 



The young has most of the feathers in the upper plumage 



