266 CHAPTERS ON THE NATURAL HISTORY 



Cedar bird and others. These cases, however, are not common, 

 and moreover, the act has been detected among other species of 

 birds, and those remotely affined to the Cuculidce. 



In speaking of the species now being considered, Bendire has 

 said : " Incubation, I think, lasts about fourteen days, and I be- 

 lieve the female performs the greater portion of this duty. The 

 young when first hatched are repulsive, black, and greasy-looking 

 creatures, nearly naked, and the sprouting quills only add to 

 their general ugliness. If the eggs are handled the bird fre- 

 quently forsakes the nest, either throwing them out or abandon- 

 ing them. The eggs are elliptical oval in shape, about equally 

 obtuse at either end; the shell is close-grained, rather thin, and 

 without gloss. The ground color varies from a uniform Nile 

 blue to pale greenish blue when fresh, fading out in time to a 

 pale greenish yellow. They are unspotted, but occasionally one 

 or two eggs in a set present a sort of mottled appearance, the 

 ground varying somewhat on different parts of the shell. Their 

 color is one of those subtle tints which it is difficult to describe 

 accurately. Many of the eggs resemble in tint some of the 

 lighter-colored Heron's eggs." 



In habits and much else the California cuckoo greatly resem- 

 bles its eastern cousin, and requires no special description here. 

 It is rather a larger bird, with a somewhat heavier and stouter 

 beak. It ranges east as far as the eastern slopes of the Rocky 

 Mountains. Slightly smaller than its conjener, the Yellow-billed 

 cuckoo, the Black-billed species resembles it in most particulars. 

 It is, however, a hardier bird, ranging further north during its 

 migrations in the spring. By the ordinary observer it is often 

 mistaken in the woods for the Yellow-billed, yet the black bill, 

 lesser size, and slightly appreciable difference in its notes are 

 usually sufficient to at once distinguish it in the eyes of the 

 trained ornithologist. " From personal observations," says Ben- 

 dire, " I am inclined to believe that the Black-billed cuckoo is 

 more irregular in its nesting habits than the Yellow-billed, and 

 that cases of parasitism are of more frequent occurrence. I also 

 think their eggs are much oftener found in different stages of in- 

 cubation than appears to be the case with the Yellow-billed 

 species." Usually they build a better nest than C. americanus, 

 and the two to five (rarely seven) eggs, are considerably darker in 

 color; they are also unspotted. Bendire, in his great work, gives 

 several very interesting accounts of the often erratic nidification 



