lOO SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I46 



that species and not to rhipidurus. In this he was in error. The 

 Phillips party was in the field from the end of December until the 

 beginning of April, so all the cases of parasitism they observed must 

 have come between these dates. Archer's dates for parasitism on 

 edithae were all later, April 29 to June 9, as stated in our discussion 

 of that bird. 



Corvultur albicollis (Latham) White-necked Raven 



This species was added to the known hosts of the great-spotted 

 cuckoo by McLachlan and Liversidge, in their revision of Roberts' 

 "Birds of South Africa" (1957). No details were given; it was 

 merely listed as a host. 



Cyanopica cyanus Pallas Azure-winged Magpie 



The subspecies cooki of this magpie is a frequent victim of the 

 great- spotted cuckoo in Portugal and Spain. All in all, I have learned 

 of some 11 instances of parasitism on this bird, an increase of 4 

 over those listed in my earlier account (1949a, pp. 13-14). 



Pica pica (Linnaeus) Magpie 



The magpie is the primary, almost the exclusive, host of the great- 

 spotted cuckoo in the limited portions of the ranges of the two 

 species where they are sympatric. It is also the one host to which 

 the tgg coloration of the parasite is unusually finely adapted. All in 

 all, counting nests with eggs, nests with young, and cases of magpies 

 attendant upon fledgling cuckoos, over 80 instances of parasitism 

 on this host have come to my attention. Geographically they range 

 from Spain, southern France (Aries), northwestern Africa (Mo- 

 rocco, Tunis, Algeria), and Cyprus, to Turkey (Ankara), and Asia 

 Minor. 



Five subspecies of the magpie are involved in these records: 

 melanotos in the Iberian Peninsula, pica in Asia Minor, hactriana in 

 Iraq, galliae in southern France, and mauritanica in northwest Africa. 

 The graph (fig. 12, p. 45) illustrating our present account of "in- 

 tensity of parasitism" shows the frequency of multiple eggs of the 

 cuckoo in nests of the magpie. This is based on egg records only and 

 does not include cases involving nestlings or fledglings. 



The most recent study of the host-parasite relations of the magpie 

 is that of Mountfort (1958, pp. 54-56), whose fieldwork was done 

 in Spain. He found both birds were very common, and that in spite 



