851 



THE OOLOGY OF INDIAN PARASITIC CUCKOOS. 



By E. C. Stuart Baker, f.z.s., 



Part II. 



(With Plate II.) 



(Continued from page 83 of this Volume.) 



OUCULUS TOLIOCEPHALUS. (VaHL.) 



The Small Cuckoo. 

 Cuculus poliocephalus. Latham, Ind. Orni., I, p. 214 ; Jerdon, B. 

 of I., p. 324 ; Fairbank, S. F., IV, p. 255 ; David and Wen., S. F., 

 VII, p. 78 ; Hume, Cat, No. 201 ; id., S. F., XI, p. 71 ; Legge, B. of 

 Ceylon, P . 231 ; Vidal, S. F., IX, p. 54 ; David, S. F., X, p. 299 ; 

 Barnes, B. of Bora., p. 124 ; Oates, Ibis, 1889, p. 359 ; id., Hume3. 

 Nests and Eggs, 2nd Ed., II, p. 382 ; Shelly, Cat. B. M., XIX, p. 255 ; 

 Osmaston, Jour., Bom. N. H. Soc., XI, p. 472 ; Nehrkorn, Cat. dor Eier, 

 p. 171 ; Blanford, A. of B. I., Ill, p. 208 ; Dresser, Pal Birds, I, 

 p. 471 ; Sharpe, Handl., II, p.158 ; Reid, Cat. Eggs B. M., Ill, p. 114. 

 In the British Museum there are three reputed eggs of this cuckoo 

 which are described by Reid as of a regular, oval shape, smooth and 

 very glossy. They are white, spotted and speckled with umber-brown, 

 more thickly at the large end than elsewhere, and with a few underlying 

 pale-purplish markings. They measure, respectively, '7 5' by *55", *7" by 

 •48", *75" by *54". These eggs do not at all agree with our authentic 

 Indian eggs, and may or may not be poliocephalus" s eggs. All are 

 Madagascar taken eggs. There is a figure of one (Plate II, fig. 3) in the 

 catalogue referred to, and from this it is seen that not only in colouration 

 but in shape and everything else these eggs of the B. M. are unlike ours. 

 The first egg taken in India on record, and which from the light of 

 later discoveries seems to have been correctly identified, is that of 

 Brooks taken at Gulmerg, Cashmere, out of a nest of Phylloscopus 

 humii (Hume's Willow-Warbler) on the 2nd June. Oates describes it 

 thus : " It is an elongated, cylindrically ovate egg. nearly the same 

 size at both ends, which are both obtuse, pure white and glossy. The 

 nest contained three of the eggs of P. humii, which are only about 

 half the size of this egg, almost glossless and richly spotted with red. 

 " The egg measures 0*81 by 0*57 inch." 



The egg ascribed by Hume to Chrysococcyx maculatus (The Emerald 

 Cuckoo) (F. B. I., Ill, p. 223), and described as a nearly uniform pale 



