THE OOLOGY OF INDIAN PARASITIC CUCKOOS. 693- 



In Dibrugarh the Bed-winged Cuckoo is even move common than it 

 was in Cachar, and Dr. Coltart and I have both collected fine series of 

 its eggs. These have been found principally in the nests of Garrulax 

 moniliger or pectoralis, more often the former than the latter, but we 

 have also eggs from the nests of Garrulax leucolophus, TantJiocincla- 

 rufigularis (The Rufous- chinned Laughing-Thrush) and Garrulax gularis 

 (^McClelland's Laughing-Thrush), 



All our eggs are almost the same in colour, or were when first taken, 

 for they soon fade, and the only difference is a very slight one in degree 

 of depth of blue. They are practically much the same in colour as a 

 medium egg of Garrulax moniliger, a good deal paler than the eggs of 

 C.jacobinus, but the same kind of blue. The texture, shell and grain are 

 in every respect the same as it is in the egg of C.jacobinus, and it is quite 

 possible to tell by touch alone the eggs of Coccystes coromandus from, 

 those of the Garruline birds in whose nests they are deposited. 



In shape the eggs average far more spherical than do those of jacobi- 

 nus, and spherical eggs are the ordinary form and elliptical eggs the 

 abnormal. The most elliptical egg I have measures 1*18" by \90", and 

 this was taken from a nest which contained another cuckoo's egg of the 

 usual spherical type. 



My eggs vary in length between l'OO" and 1*18" and in breadth 

 between -80" and -96", the average of 30 being TOG" by '90". 



Mr. Mandelli's oviduct egg was obtained under such curious circum- 

 stances that his, or rather Mr. Hume's, remarks are worth quoting t 

 " A nest, containing four fresh eggs, was obtained by Mr. Mandelli which 

 was placed on the branches of a very large tree, at a height of 25 feet 

 from the ground. A fifth egg was extracted from the oviduct of the- 

 parent bird. All the five eggs are precisely alike and like others that 

 I have myself extracted from the oviduct of this species. I cannot, how- 

 ever, for a moment believe that it really belongs to the cuckoo." 



It is curious the bird selected the same nest in which to lay all five eggs. 



Capt. Fielden found this bird frequently being fed by quaker 

 thrushes, and took an egg once from the nest of this latter bird. 



Blanford thus describes the habitat of the Red-winged Cuckoo : "This is 

 a very rare bird in India. Jerdon states that he saw it in Malabar and the 

 Carnatic and that it has been found in Central India (Chutia Nagpur). 

 There are skins in the Hume Collection from Madras, Trichinopoly, and ; 

 the Neilgherries. The only other recorded occurrence I can find is at 



