70 LIST OF BIKDS IN MANIPUK, 



It occurs at one season or another all over Assam,* Sylhet 

 and Cachar, alike in the hills, up to at least 6,000 feet and in the 

 plains. 



It occurs, and is probably not uncommon, in either Pegu or 

 Karenee, but it is very rare, indeed seems to be only an 

 occasional straggler to Tenasserim. From Arakan it has not yet 

 been recorded. 



200.— Cuculus striatus, Drapiez. 



Observed both in the Eastern and Western hills, but only 

 procured in the former. Of a male the wing measures 7*2, 

 of a female 6 '9. The ordinary cry of this species (which 

 some still persist in calling himalayanus, Vig., though Blyth 

 after carefully going into the question declared this equalled 

 striatus of Drapiez) is, as is well known, the whistled " Icyphul- 

 pukkha." But there was a cuculine bird (/ think, though one of 

 my men declared he saw Nyctiornis athertoni uttering it) in 

 the Manipur hills that called " Hoot, hoot — toot, toot " and yet 

 which we could never identify certainly. One day I heard 

 this call in a tree high above me ; looked up, saw a cuckoo-like 

 bird at an immense height ; fired and down came a female of 

 this species. Now it may be that this species has this second 

 call, but about Simla,-f where in the spring " kyphul-pukkha" 

 resounds from morn to night, I never remember hearing this 

 peculiar "Hoot, hoot-toot toot," which instantly attracted 

 my attention the first day I heard it in Manipur ; and, secondly, 

 we heard this latter note in Manipur very much oftener than 

 " kyphul-pukkha." 



So it is possible that the real utterer of this mysteri- 

 ous cry was also up in the tree, and skedaddled when I 

 fired without my seeing it, which it well might do, it being 

 in high forest, or it is just possible that we have all of us made 

 a mistake about " kyphul-pukkha" I have repeatedly here at 

 Simla shot striatus as, I believe, the very bird making this 

 latter call. Col. Tytler said he had done the same ; but 

 Captain Bingham was positive he shot male micropterus 

 {i.e., affinis, Blyth) in the very act of giving out this call ; 

 and it will be noticed that Jerdon (B. of I., I, 328) gives 

 this cry as the vernacular name at Mussoorie of this very 

 species, and Godwin- Austen says the call is takoo-takoo, which 

 is identical. We have all of us shot micropterus, as we 



* \_Cuculus canorus. — Throughout the Dibrugarh district the well-known call of 

 this bird is continually heard from February, both in forest and opea country. 

 It generally calls from the tops of the highest trees. — J. R. C] 



t Since heard several times in the low valleys below Simla. 



