YELLOW-BILLED AMERICAN CUCKOO. 209 



obtained late in the month of August or early in the month 

 of September. M. Temminck, unwilling to consider them 

 as migrations from North America to Europe, thinks it pro- 

 bable the bird may yet be found in the North of Europe. 



Mr. Thompson's observations on the occurrence of these 

 four examples are thus recorded in the ninth volume of the 

 Annals of Natural History, " The specimen obtained near 

 Bray was shown to me by Mr. Grlennon, bird preserver, 

 Dublin, and I agree with Mr. Ball in considering it 

 identical in species with his own. This was, with that 

 gentleman's usual liberality, entrusted to me when about 

 to visit London in the spring of 1835, when I compared it 

 with the specimen presented by Lord Cawdor to the 

 British Museum, and found them to be of the same 

 species. Before leaving home, I had purchased in Belfast 

 a Yellow-billed American Cuckoo from a person who had 

 shot it at Long Island (United States) and at a meeting of 

 the Zoological Society, exhibited this bird and Mr. Ball's 

 for the purpose of showing their Specific identity. It 

 was considered desirable to look as critically as possible to 

 these birds, on account of the singular fact of their appear- 

 ance in this hemisphere. Ornithologists can hardly believe 

 that they cross the Atlantic. Temminck conjectures that 

 this Cuckoo must breed in the north of Europe, whence 

 individuals migrated to the British Islands. But our 

 knowledge of their occurrence here only, and in the more 

 western parts, (Ireland, Wales and Cornwall) in addition 

 to the fact, that at the very period of their being met with, 

 the species is, as we learn from Wilson and Audubon, in 

 course of migration in the western hemisphere, seems to me 

 presumptive evidence of their having really crossed the 

 ocean. So far north as Labrador, Audubon has seen this 

 bird in summer." 



VOL. II. P 



