THE OOLOGY OF INDIAN PARASITIC CUCKOOS. 373 



I have not hud the luck to take this bird's eggs myself, but was given 

 one by Mr. E. C. Green on the 10th of June this year, 1904, together 

 with three eggs of P. /no mat a which he had taken that morning. 

 The egg was on the point of hatching, but I kept the remnants. In 

 colouration this is of the white type found by Mr. Davidson. 



A fair series of these eggs have passed through my hands during the 

 writing of this paper, and, broadly speaking, the eggs may be said to be 

 of two types. Pure white, with sparse blotches or spots, nearly 

 always disposed about the larger end, where they may form an ill-defined 

 ring. The other form is much the same, but has the ground colour a 

 very pale hedge-sparrow's egg blue, and the spots seem, as a rule, to be 

 even more scanty and the ring, if any, even less defined. Irvine's egg 

 is the only one I have seen that does not quite agree with the common 

 forms anil that is described above in detail. 



Typically the eggs are rather elongated ovals with a fine close grain, 

 smooth surface and, often, a decided gloss. They are rather stout in 

 proportion to their size. The eggs which have passed through my 

 hands have varied in length between *69" and "74" and in width betweeD 

 •46" and '54", the average of ten eggs being -72" by '52". Hume 

 describes the eggs as much larger, i.e., A r arying between *78" by *81" in 

 length and *53" to *57" in width, so that my largest egg is smaller than 

 his smallest. The two eggs of Miss Cockburn's in the British Museum 

 measure -78" by -55" and -76" by *51". The figure of this egg in the 

 B. M. Catalogue is very good, though the colour is perhaps a little dark 

 The range of the Indian Plaintive Cuckoo is thus given by Blanford : 

 ■• The greater part of India, from the Himalayas to Ceylon inclusive, 

 rare in the North-West, and although found on Mount Abu, wanting 

 elsewhere throughout Rajputana and the Indus Plains. This cuckoo 

 occurs in the Himalayas from Simla to Sikhim, ascending the hills tt 

 the westwards up to about 9,000' according to Jerdon, and its range 

 extends to Eastern Bengal, where it meets the next species. In the 

 peninsula of India it is chiefly found in forest regions, and is most 

 abundant in Bengal, Urissa, the wooded tracts of the latter, and on the 

 hills in the neighbourhood of the Malabar Coast." 



I found it not uncommon in Cachar, though merulinus was much more 

 so, and have both seen and heard it in Lakhimpur. 



Elliot describes its call as we-iolmc. whe-whe-e-ew. It is very much 

 like one of the most plaintive, complaining calls of the Common Dronge 



