222 NOTES ON THE 
about a week or ten days, and they mate very soon after her 
arrival. Its habits differ from the other mostly in its prefer- 
ence for open places, and cultivated fields, while that is more 
reclusive, occupying the forests mainly. 
The nest of this species is quite uniformly located in a bush 
or small tree, and is constructed of roots, twigs, leaves, cat- 
kins and moss.* They lay four eggs, also greenish-blue, but 
of considerable darker shade than those of the Yellow-billed 
Cuckoo. 
The notes sent me by correspondents nearly all testify to 
the presence of this bird during the season of incubation. 
Mr. Washburn found it still in the Red river valley about 
the first of September. It generally remains until from the 
15th to the 20th of that month, and disappears as silently as it 
came. 
Dr. Hvoslef reports it at Lanesboro on the 25th of May, when 
of course it was presumptively breeding. Professor Herrick 
made a note of this species in his collections for the museum 
of the State University in 1875. Indeed it is acommon species 
of its genus. 
It prefers the vicinity of damp, shaded places, in the borders 
of wooded tracts, more commonly, but is often found in the 
fields and gardens, or on grass patches, surrounded by 
thickets. 
SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 
Bill entirely black; upper parts generally of a metallic green- 
ish-olive, ashy towards the base of the bill; beneath pure white, 
with a brownish: yellow tinge on the throat; inner webs of the 
quills tinged with cinnamon; under surface of all the tail 
feathers hoary ash-gray; all beneath the central on either side, 
suffused with darker, to the short, bluish-white, and not well 
defined tip; a naked red skin around the eye; iris hazel. 
Length, 12; wing, 5; tail, 6.50. 
Habitat, eastern North America. 
*Several instances have now been reported to me, and I have observed one person- 
ally, where the nest was placed on the trunk of a decaying log, and the one I found 
consisted only of dry sticks and catkins of the maple, while those reported embraced 
roots, twigs and grass in their structure. In another instance I saw a Black-billed 
Cuckoo sitting in the middle of an obsolete cow path in the woods, and as it did not 
fly at sight of me, I approached it cautiously, thinking perhaps it was wounded, and I 
could not have been more than ten feet from it when it threw out one wing and the 
corresponding Jeg, and fluttered along just outof my reach until thirty feet away 
before it disappeared in the thicket, but I had not been deceived, for two character- 
istic eggs had been left completely exposed on the spot she left. All indications of a 
nest were absent, and the eggs were fresh, as their blowing afterwards proved. 
Llooked carefully for the remains of a nest possibly destroyed by an enemy, but I 
could find none, nor was I successful in finding a mate near. 
This was on the 14th of May,1877. It was remarkable, and quite inexplicable to me. 
