208 CUCULID.E. 



anxious to discover how many eggs the Cuckoo of Europe 

 drops in one season. If it, as I suspect, produces, as our 

 bird does, not less than eight or ten, or what may be called 

 the amount of two broods in a season, this circumstance 

 would connect the two species in a still more intimate 

 manner than theoretical writers have supposed them to be 

 allied. Having mentioned these circumstances to my 

 friend, Dr. T. M. Brewer, and requested him to pay par- 

 ticular attention to these birds while breeding, he has sent 

 me the following note : " The fact you intimated to 

 me last July I have myself observed. The female 

 evidently commences incubation immediately after laying 

 her first egg. Thus I have found in the nest of both 

 species of our Cuckoos* one egg quite fresh, while in 

 another the chick will be just bursting the shell; and 

 again, I have found an egg just about to be hatched while 

 others are already so, and some of the young even about to 

 fly. These species are not uncommon in Massachusets, 

 where both breed, and both are much more numerous 

 some years than others." Mr. Audubon adds, " I found 

 the Yellow-billed Cuckoo plentiful and breeding in the 

 Texas ; and it is met with, on the other hand, in Nova 

 Scotia, and even in Labrador, where I saw a few. It has 

 been observed on the Columbia river by Dr. Townsend. 

 No mention is made of it in the Fauna Boreali- Americana. 

 Many spend the winter in the most southern portions of the 

 Floridas." Pennant, in his Arctic Zoology, says of this 

 bird, tc It arrives in New York in May, makes its nest 

 in June, and retires from North America in autumn." 



The appearance of four examples of an American 

 species in this country has caused some speculation. As 

 far as I have been able to ascertain, these birds were 



* The other is the Black-billed American Cuckoo. 



