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THE OOLOGY OF INDIAN PARASITIC CUCKOOS. : 

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

 Part III. (With Plate III.) 

 {Continued from page 374 of this Volume.) 

 Cacomantis merulinus. (Scop.) 



The Rufous-bellied Cuckoo. 



Cacomantis threnodes. Hume and Dav., S. F., VI, p. 158 ; Hume, 

 ibid., VII, p. 207 ; XI, p. 72 ; ibid., Cat. No. 209 ; Cripps, S. F., VII. 

 p. 265 ; Bingham, ibid., IX, p. 167 ; Oates, B. of Burmah, II, p. III. 



Cacomantis merulinus. Shelly, Cat. B. M., XIX, p. 268 ; Oates, 

 Fauna of B. I., Ill, p. 218 ; Nehrkorn, Cat., p. 171. 



Polyphasia tenuirostris. JercL, B. of I., I, p. 335. 



Cacomantis rufiventris. Armstrong, S. F., IV, p. 312. 



Information as to the breeding of this cuckoo is scanty and very 

 conflicting. Fielden took the eggs of a cuckoo from the nest of a 

 tailor- bird in Thayetmyo, Burmah, and, as passerinus is not found there, 

 these are almost to a certainty those of merulinus. 



Nehrkorn describes eggs in his collection as " cream-white, with deli- 

 cate red brown and violet specks which form a ring at the larger end, 

 20 by 15 mm. (from the nest of Pycnonotus aurigaster)." His eggs 

 came from Java. 



Herr Kuschel in a letter to me writes : — " The eggs of Cacomantis 

 merulinus resemble very closely those of Surniculus lugubris (The Drongo 

 Cuckoo), but they are rather smaller and not so profusely spotted as are 

 the eggs of the latter. I have received eggs of this species with nest eggs 

 of Pycnonotus, Henicurus leschenaulti (Leschenault's Forktail), Stopa- 

 rola indigo, Abrornis trivirgata and Megalurus palustris (The Striat- 

 ed Marsh -Warbler)." 



The eggs Herr Kuschel calls Surnikulus lugubris is like a rather stumpy 

 egg of Cuculus saturatus. I doubt extremely whether either Herr Kus- 

 chel's or Herr von Nehrkorn's eggs are properly identified. I have myself 

 one egg which I believed to be that of C. merulinus, which was taken 

 from the nest of Copsychus saularis (The Magpie-Bobin), together with 

 two eggs of the foster-parent bird. It is exactly like a large egg of Prinia 

 inornata, and agrees fairly well with Miss Cockburn's description of the 

 eggs of C. passerinus. This latter bird is, however, very rare here, 



