96 YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO. 



Its food consists of insects and caterpillars, as also berries, 

 and it occasionally destroys the eggs of other birds. With 

 the former-named the young are also fed, and both birds 

 unite in the task of providing for them. 



The note, resembling the syllables 'kowe, kowe, kowe, kowe,' 

 is uttered first slowly, and then faster until it ends so rapidly 

 that the notes seem to run into one another, and it is also 

 repeated backwards with a relative change of time. It appears 

 to have some imitative powers of voice; and hence Wilson 

 imagines its name of Cow-bird to be derived; but it occurs 

 to me as possible that its note, just described, may have been 

 the origin of it. The name of Rain-bird has also, he says, 

 been applied to it from its being observed to be most clamorous 

 immediately before rain. 



The nest is commenced about the end of the first week in 

 May. 



This species of Cuckoo does build a nest for itself, though 

 of rude construction, and nearly flat. It is placed on the 

 branch of a tree, and is made of small sticks and twigs, 

 intermixed with weeds and blossoms. Meyer says that it is 

 made of roots and wool. 



The eggs, three, four, or five, generally four in number, 

 are of a uniform greenish blue colour, and of a duly propor- 

 tionate size. As if, however, every kind of Cuckoo must have 

 something peculiar about it, the one before us does not begin 

 to hatch its eggs when all have been laid, but commences at 

 once with the first, the necessary consequence of which is 

 that each successive egg is hatched later than its predecessor ; 

 and thus the family of Cuckoos exhibit various stages of 

 advancement while yet in the nest. The 'rationale' of this is 

 assuredly not as yet 'dreampt of in our philosophy.' 



Male; length, one foot to one foot one inch; bill, rather 

 long, and a little curved, black at the tip above and below; 

 the remainder of the lower part is yellow, and of the upper 

 black, edged with yellow at the base; iris, hazel, but Meyer 

 says yellow, feathered close to the eyelid, which is yellow. 

 Head, crown, neck, which on the sides is white, behind, and 

 nape, cinereous brown, with a tinge of olive; chin, throat, 

 and breast, greyish white; back, as the head and nape. The 

 wings expand to the width of one foot four inches; the first 

 quill feather is more than an inch shorter than the second, 

 the second shorter than the third or fourth, but equal to the 

 fifth; the third longer than the fourth, and the longest in 



