THE BLACK-BILLED CUCKOO. 85 



sticks and twigs, and sometimes a few pieces of moss. The 

 eggs are usually four in number ; they are of a light 

 greenish-blue color, and almost invariably larger than those 

 of the Black-billed Cuckoo. A number of specimens before 

 me vary from 1.07 to 1.25 of an inch in length, by from .84 

 to .96 inch in breadth. But one brood is reared in the 

 season. 



COCCYGUS ERYTHROPHTHALMUS. Bonaparte. 

 The Black-billed Cuckoo. 



Cuculus erythrophthalmus, Wilson. Am. Orn., IV. (1811), 16. 



Coccyzus erythrophthalmus, Audubon. Orn. Biog., I. (1832), 170. Bonap. 



Syn., 42. 



DESCRIPTION. 



Bill entirely black ; upper parts generally of a metallic greenish-olive, ashy to- 

 wards the base of the bill; beneath pure-white, with a brownish-yellow tinge on the 

 throat; inner webs of the quills tinged with cinnamon; under surface of all the tail 

 feathers hoary ash-gray; all beneath the central, on either side, suffused with darker 

 to the short, bluish-white, and not well-defined tip; a naked red skin round the eye; 

 iris, hazel. 1 



Length about twelve inches ; wing, five ; tail, six and a half. 



This species is quite abundantly distributed throughout 

 New England as a summer visitor, reaching to more north- 

 ern latitudes than the other. It arrives from the South 

 about the first week in May ; 

 and, like the Yellow-billed 

 Cuckoo, the males precede 

 the females. I have exam- 

 ined numbers of the first 

 birds that arrived in differ- 

 ent seasons, and they were 

 invariably males ; the females 

 making their appearance 

 about ten days or a fortnight 

 later. The habits of the two 

 species are very similar, although the present bird prefers 

 the more cultivated and open districts, while the other 



1 In succeeding species, when the color of the iris is not given, it is understood to 

 be dark-hazel or black. 



