THE OOLOGY OF INDIAN PARASITIC CUCKOOS. G79 



whereas C. merulinus is very common. The egg is a cuckoo's egg of 

 some kind, and is not that of any of the cuckoos, the eggs of which one 

 knows at present unless it is that of merulinus. This egg which I have 

 figured in PI. Ill, fig. 1, has a blue ground colour and is sparsely blotch- 

 ed with large blotches of vandyke-brown and inky-brown and others 

 underlying these again, and still larger, of inky-grey and purple-grey. 

 The blotches are confined principally to the smaller end, but this is, of 

 course, an abnormality which occurs occasionally with all birds' eggs. 



In shape it is very broad oval, the smaller end very obtuse. The 

 shell is very fine and smooth, but has no gloss. It measures '71" by *61", 

 and was taken at Margherita on the 20th April, 1902. 



The Rufous-bellied Cuckoo is the Eastern representative of the Plain- 

 tive Cuckoo, and is found all over Eastern Bengal, Assam and Burmah ; 

 it is resident in all these provinces and very common. Hume obtained 

 two specimens, probably stragglers only, in Raipur. 



In habits, &c, it is like the Plaintive Cuckoo, and its voice resembles 

 that of that bird, but is less seldom used and perhaps less high-pitched 

 and shrill. 



Genus Penthoceryx. (Latham.) 



The genus Penthoceryx contains a single Indian species which is very 

 closely allied to the genus Cacomantis. It differs in the adults, always 

 being barred above, in the tail feathers narrowing towards the tip and in 

 having a proportionately stouter, blunter bill. 



Blanford remarks that this genus is nearer to Cacomantis than to 

 Cuculus, and this must be so when one comes to consider it, for the 

 young are, to all intents and purposes, one and the same generically, and 

 it would therefore follow that Cacomantis is probably a merely highly 

 developed form of Penthoceryx which has not yet acquired a true 

 Cuculine adult plumage. 



Penthoceryx sonnerati. (Latham.) 

 The Banded Bay Cuckoo. 

 Cuculus sonnerati. Jerdon, B. of I., I, p. 325 ; Fairbank, S. F., 

 IV, p. 255 ; Hume and Davidson, ibid., VI, p. 156 ; Hume, ibid., VII, 

 p. 207 ; id., Cat. No. 202 ; Legge, B. of Ceylon, p. 233 ; Vidal, S. F., 

 IX, p. 54 ; Butler, ibid., p. 388 ; Oates, B. of Burmah, X, p. 107 ; id., 

 Hume's Nests and Eggs, 2nd Ed., II, p. 382 ; Barnes, B. of Bom., 

 p. 125 ; Shelly, Cat. of B. M., XIX, p. 262. 



