8 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I46 



the subfamily that not only contains most of the genera of parasitic 

 cuckoos (all but the two Neotropical Tapera and Dromococcyx), 

 but also contains no cuckoos that are not parasitic, as do the other 

 five subfamilies. In their recent study of the molting patterns of the 

 cuckoos, the Stresemanns (1961) have pointed out also the primitive 

 nature of Clamator's transilient mode of remigial molt, and have 

 mentioned the absence of evicting behavior in its young as another 

 evidence of primitiveness. Peters (1940) seems to have been so 

 convinced of the primitive nature of the genus Clamator that he 

 actually placed it at the very beginning of his list of all the members 

 of the family. 



While I also conclude that the crested cuckoos are to be looked 

 upon as among the primitive, oldest sections of the subfamily 

 Cuculinae, I doubt that this subfamily may justifiably be placed at 

 the base of the v^hole family. Inasmuch as nest-building, incubation 

 of eggs, and care of young are features of reproductive activity in 

 practically all groups of birds, it seems likely that the most primitive 

 cuckoos were nonparasitic as well. From this it follows that a sub- 

 family made up wholly of brood parasites could not be the most 

 primitive section of a family that contains many self -breeding genera 

 and species. 



The age of the genus Clamator is, of course, unknown, but some 

 suggestive evidence points to its being not later than Pliocene in 

 origin. This is an inference based on the fact that although the genus 

 occurs over a wide area in Africa and in southern Asia, it is absent 

 in the Malagasy Republic (formerly Madagascar). In his study of the 

 history of the African terrestrial fauna, Lonnberg (1929) concluded 

 that Pliocene faunal transfers between southern Asia and Africa gen- 

 erally are absent from the Malagasy Republic regardless of the extent 

 of their range in either of the two continents. The fact that Clamator 

 does not occur in Malagasy suggests that the spread of the genus prob- 

 ably took place during, or subsequent to, the Pliocene, at which time 

 Malagasy became completely isolated as an oceanic island. As a result 

 of the present study, it appears that the southern African population of 

 C. jacobinus is the oldest, most primitive of existing Clamator stocks, 

 and it seems that its species spread throughout much of Africa and 

 thence to Asia. The fact that in southern Asia this stock gave rise 

 to a more involved evolutionary development than in Africa, and 

 eventually produced so different a bird as C. coromandus, which, in 

 turn, seems a stage on the phylogenetic road that culminated in C. 

 glandarius, suggests a very considerable antiquity for the genus in 



