BIRDS OF MINNESOTA. 221 
not a very wild, or over-cautious bird and yet are more arbor- 
eal in their habits than the Black-billed Cuckoos. They leave 
the country soon after the first sharp frosts of autumn. 
Their food consists largely of catterpillers, larve, and 
smaller forms of insects. 
Whenever I have seen this bird it has invariably been in the 
timber, where thickets prevail, and I have almost uniformly 
found it on the ground apparently feeding upon insects and 
larvee. It would slip into the thicket instantly, through open- 
ings so small as to seem impossible to a bird of so great exten- 
sion of its wings. As soon as well concealed, perhaps not 
twenty yards away, it would remain perfectly motionless until, 
with my field glass I could find and note it at my leisure, so 
long as I made no advance. 
I have been disappointei in not getting more reports of this 
species from other sections of the State, and must think the 
reason is its extreme shyness, and not its total absence. I 
know of no other bird of its marked proportions which is so 
difficult to observe, for the reasons mentioned. 
It will be driven a mile without appearing in sight above the 
brushy thickets it frequents, slipping alike through the peril- 
ous meshes of a thorn-bush and a prickly ash. I have pursued 
them in this manner until an opening compelled them to 
expose themselves for a moment, when they would fly as near 
the ground as possible to the next thicket, in which passage 
lay my only opportunity in securing them. 
SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 
Upper mandible and tip of lower, black; rest of lower man- 
dible and cutting edges of upper, yellow; upper parts metallic 
greenish-olive, slightly tinged with ashy toward the bill; be- 
neath white; tail feathers (except the median, which are like 
the back), black, tipped with white about an inch on the outer 
feathers, the external one with the outer edge almost entirely 
white; quills orange-cinamon; the terminal portion and a gloss 
on the outer webs, olive; iris brown. 
Length, 12; wing, 5.95; tail, 6.35. 
Habitat, temperate North America. 
COYCCZUS ERYTHROPHTHALMUS (Witson). (388.) 
BLACK-BILLED CUCKOO. 
This species is, and has ever been a more regular summer 
resident than the Yellow: billed Cuckoo, reaching us about the 
25th of April, often a little earlier or a little later. Incommon 
with the other species of cuckoo, the male precedes the female 
