316 MR. w. T. BLAKroR]? ON THE [Mar. 28, 



C. micropterus.i Of the two other Indian species of Cucuhis 

 admitted by Jerdon, one called by him C. striatus, Drapiez 

 {C. affinis. Hay), is now generally admitted not to be distinct 

 from C. micropterus, whilst the other, C. sonnerati, is, I think, 

 rightly placed in a separate genus, Penthoceryx, by Cabanis. 



About the specific names of three of the four Cuckoos above 

 enumerated, C. canonis, C. iwUocephalus, and C. micropterus, there 

 has never been any question. But the species described by 

 Jerdon as the Himalayan Cuckoo, or Cucuhis himalayanus, has 

 been singularly unfortunate in this respect ; it has received several 

 specific names of its own, and yet has always, despite various 

 changes of nomenclature, appeared in systematic works under a 

 title that, so far as I can ascertain, does not belong to it. Blyth, 

 ■who had in 1846 (J. A. S. B. xv. p. 18) rightly distinguished this 

 species as C. saturatus, Hodgson, and regarded C. himalayanus. 

 Vigors, as a synonym of C. poliocephdlus, in his Catalogue of the 

 Birds in the Museum of the Asiatic Society, published in 1849, 

 entered the name of the Himalayan Cuckoo (to prevent confusion 

 I employ Jerdon's English name) thus : " G. Iiimalayanus, Vigors, 

 (nee apud Gould, Century, pi. 54) ; " and kept only " C. himalaya- 

 nus, apud Grould, Cent.^'' as a synonym of C p'oliocephalus, 

 evidently supposing that the bird described by Vigors, P. Z. S. 

 1831, p. 172, belonged to a different species from that figured 

 in Grould's ' Century of Birds from the Himalaya Mountains ' 

 (1832). But Mr. Vigors, at the commencement of his de- 

 scriptions of new species, including C. himalayanus, expressly 

 stated (l. c. p. 170) that all the birds described by him belonged 

 to " the sixth and last portion of the species comprising the 

 ' Century of Birds from the Himalaya Mountains ' drawn 

 and lithographed by Mr. and Mrs. Gould," so that it appears 

 certain that the actual specimen figui'ed in the 'Century' as 

 C. himalayamis was also described by Vigors under that name. 

 In all probability Blyth, who always MTote under great dis- 

 advantages from ^^•SLnt of access to books, had not Vigors's 

 paper to refer to, and depended on a copy of the description. 

 Horsfield and Moore, in their ' Catalogue of the Birds in the 

 Museum of the East India Company,' and Jerdon in the ' Birds 

 of India,' copied Blyth's mistake. 



In ' The Ibis ' for 1866, p. 359, in his commentary on Jerdon's 

 ' Birds of India,' Blyth, following Schlegel (Mus Pays-Bas, CucuU, 

 p. 7) adopted the name Cuculus striatus for the Himalayan Cuckoo, 

 though he expressed his doubts in a footnote whether Drapiez's 

 description (Diet. Class. d'Hist. Nat. iv. p. 570) did not agree 

 better with C. micropterus. However, from 1866 the name 

 C. striatus was generally used for the bird by Indian ornitholo- 

 gists until recently, although Jerdon (Ibis, 1872, p. 12) did not 

 accept the term. 



The various plumages of the three closely allied Cuckoos, 

 C. canorus, the Himalayan Cuckoo (under the name of C. striatus), 

 and C. poliocepjhalus, were first, I think, clearly discriminated by 



