NO. 4 AVIAN GENUS CLAMATOR — FRIEDMANN 55 



fosterers. In the other species of Clamator their eggs are generally 

 larger than those of their victims. 



The egg pattern of the great-spotted cuckoo is so closely adapted 

 to that of the magpie, its primary host in Spain, that it has often 

 been mentioned as an example of perfected adaptive evolution. As 

 we have had occasion to discuss elsewhere in this paper, there can be 

 little doubt that it developed with the magpie as the chief host, and 

 that the range of the cuckoo has subsequently been extended to areas 

 outside the range of this fosterer. 



As is so frequently the case, adaptations that seem, to the in- 

 vestigator, obviously functional, and, hence, readily understandable, 

 suddenly seem to be unimportant and unnecessary when the organism 

 possessing them moves into a different situation. In Portugal, and 

 also in parts of Spain, the great-spotted cuckoo parasitizes the blue- 

 winged magpie, Cyanopica cyanus cooki, and, in Egypt and in sub- 

 Saharan Africa it uses even more divergent hosts. Etchecopar (1946, 

 p. 165) admitted the striking similarity in the eggs of this parasite 

 and those of Pica pica, but was moved to state that when the host 

 was Cyanopica it was difficult to see any special resemblance (". . . 

 ou il est difficile de voir la moindre trace d'adaptation . . ."). 



Recently Tomlinson (1962, p. 260) has stated that he found the 

 great-spotted cuckoo parasitized the black crow {Corviis capensis) 

 and the pied crow (Corvus albiis) in South Africa, and that its eggs 

 varied in color to match those of the host, pinkish in the case of 

 capensis, greenish in albus! Eraser (1962, p. 343) and Calder (1962, 

 p. 344) rightly questioned the identification of the pink "cuckoo" egg 

 noted by Tomlinson. In the light of all we know at present there is 

 no reason for thinking that the great-spotted cuckoo lays more than 

 one type of egg. However, as I discussed in my earlier account 

 (1949a, pp. 44-45) and in the description of egg morphism in Clama- 

 tor levaillantii in the present paper, there are on record some four 

 instances of pinkish eggs attributed with some presumptive evidence 

 to the stripe-breasted cuckoo. In addition to these, Priest ( 1934, vol. 

 2, pp. 238, 245-247) reported a speckled, pinkish egg, supposedly of 

 a cuckoo, in a nest of a pied crow (which lays greenish eggs that 

 contrasted very strongly with it). He suggested that it might be 

 either the stripe-breasted or the great-spotted cuckoo, and noted that 

 its size, 29 x 23 mm., favored the latter identification. In discussing 

 this record I suggested that it might have been a "runt" egg of the 

 black crow ; this suggestion would be even more appropriate in Tom- 

 linson's record, as there the nest and the egg would both be identified 

 to the same species. 



