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76 



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difficult to conceive how a bird of the size and form of the Long-tailed Cuckoo could deposit its 

 egg in the domed nest of the last-named species ; and even supposing that it did, it would seem 

 almost a physical impossibility for so small a creature to hatch it ; and, again, even were this 

 feasible, it is difficult to imagine how the frail tenement of a suspension nest could support the 

 daily increasing weight of the young Cuckoo. Over and above all this, there is the significant 

 fact that I once shot an adult female of the present species in which the underparts were quite 

 denuded of feathers, as if the bird had been long incubating. 



Strange as such an hypothesis may appear, we are not altogether without a parallel instance 

 in bird-history ; for in the case of the Chrysococcyoc smaragdineus of Western Africa, it is alleged 

 that this Cuckoo hatches its single egg and then, utterly unmindful of its- parental obligations, 

 casts the care of its offspring on a charitable public, and that almost every passing bird, attracted 

 by the piping cry of the deserted bantling, drops a caterpillar or other sweet morsel into its 

 imploring throat ! My artist, Mr. Keulemans, assures me that he often witnessed this himself 

 during his residence on Prince's Island. 



An egg^ forwarded to me some years ago by the Eev. R. Taylor, of Wanganui, as belonging 

 to this species, is almost spherical in shape, with a slightly rough or granulate surface ; it is of a 

 pale buff or yellowish-brown colour, and measures 1'25 inch in length by 1'15 in breadth. I 

 ought to state, however, that it was obtained from a native, and that its authenticity cannot be 

 considered quite certain. 



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