NO. 4 AVIAN GENUS CLAMATOR — FRIEDMANN I7 



parasitism by pica known to me refer to 7 species of babblers (94 out 

 of a total of 106 nests) of the genera Garrulax (moniligerus, 

 pectoralis, delesserti, and erythrocephalus) and Turdoides (caudatus, 

 striatus, and affinis). 



It may be stressed that inasmuch as several species of bulbuls, 

 shrikes, and babblers occur as breeding birds in considerable num- 

 bers throughout the ranges of both races of the pied cuckoo, the 

 difference in host selection is not something imposed on the parasites. 

 In Kenya the race pica has been noted by van Someren (in litt.) to 

 lay fairly frequently in the nests of a bulbul, Pycnonotus barbatus, 

 (3 records), but in India there is but a single instance of a bulbul 

 nest used by the parasite. Inasmuch as Kenya was an early area of 

 invasion in the course of the northward spread of C. jacobinus, this 

 tendency there to use bulbuls as fosterers may have been established 

 very early prior to the general shift to babblers. As discussed more 

 fully elsewhere (pp. 51-53) the egg of pica is greenish blue whereas 

 that of serratus is pure white. 



In India, where the pied cuckoo has been studied extensively. Baker 

 (1942, p. 82) had no records of its eggs in central or southern India 

 from any nests other than those of babblers, though a few such had 

 been reported by others. It so happens that this cuckoo, after becom- 

 ing well established in India, began to expand its range northward 

 into the foothills of the Himalayas. Baker noted that "when we 

 come to the hills ... we find the . . . Pied Crested Cuckoo placing 

 their eggs in a great range of birds' nests, though in most cases these 

 are nests of the Larger Laughing-Thrushes, nearly all laying blue 

 eggs with which the eggs of the Cuckoos do not contrast. The normal 

 fosterers here are undoubtedly the Necklaced and Black-gorgeted 

 Laughing-Thrushes in the Eastern Himalayas and the Striated Laugh- 

 ing-Thrush in the Western. Of eggs laid in these nests I have 49, 

 while I have 42 deposited in the nests of twelve other Laughing- 

 Thrushes . . . With the exception of the species mentioned ... I do 

 not believe any of the others could be considered normal fosterers, 

 while even these three can only be considered normal because they 

 have been selected as such by birds breeding outside their own normal 

 Plains area. . . ." 



In Africa, when C. jacobinus stock gave rise to what has evolved 

 into C. levaillantii, that new group, even more than the more northern 

 jacobinus (now pica), became attached to babblers in its brood para- 

 sitism. In these birds, C. levaillantii found an abundant supply of 

 fosterers and in their use found an escape from competition with its 



