318 THE SCIENTinC NAME OF A HIMALAYAN CFCKOO. [Mar. 28, 



in all probability would have been had its range extended to 

 Travancore. There is, however, one mention of its occurrence 

 in the Wynaad by an excellent and trustworthy observer, the late 

 Mr. W. Davison (' Stray Feathers,' x, p. 359) ; but I think this 

 supposed occurrence may be thus explained. Mr. Davison's note 

 is as follows : — "Sparingly distributed in the Wynaad. I should 

 think that it was a permanent resident, as I have heard it calling 

 late in May." I infer from this and from the fact that there 

 is no Wynaad skin in the Hume Collection that Mr. Davison, 

 who was collecting for Mr. Hume, did not obtain a specimen, 

 but only heard the call. But a reference to ' Stray Feathers,' 

 xi. p. 70, shows that Mr. Hume's (and consequently, it is reason- 

 able to conclude, Mr. Davison's) belief was that the call of the 

 Himalayan Cuckoo AA^as something like " Kyphiil-pakkha " \ and 

 the name Kypliiil-pal:l:ha is applied by some of the Himalayan 

 people to a Cuckoo. According to Hutton, however (Blyth, 

 Cat. B. Mus. As. Soc. p. 71, who is confirmed by Bingham and 

 Marshall, Ibis, 1S84, p. 411), this note is produced by C. micro- 

 pterus, which doubtless occurs in the Wynaad, and it would be 

 very difficult to tell the Himalayan Cuckoo from C. microjiterus 

 without shooting the bird. Jerdon (B. I. i. p. 323 ; Ibis, 1872, 

 p. 12) has clearly shown that the call of the Himalayan Cuckoo is 

 quite different, and his account is confirmed by that excellent 

 observer Col. C. H. T. Marshall. 



I came to the above conclusions more than a year ago, but 

 before publishing them I thought it best to enquire into this ques- 

 tion thoroughly. I therefore wrote to Mr. Davison, then living 

 at Singapore, and asked him whether he could remember if he 

 had ever shot the Himalayan Cuckoo in Southern India or 

 whether he had only heard the note. He replied to me in a 

 letter, which is, I regret to say, the last I can ever receive from 

 one of the very best field-naturalists who have helped in working 

 out the ornithology of India, and said that he did not pi-ocure 

 a specimen of this Cuckoo when he was collecting for Mr. Hume, 

 but he thought he obtained one later in a collection he made for 

 the Madras Museum. I therefore AATote to Dr. AVarth, who was 

 in chai'ge of that Museum, and asked him to ascertain for me 

 whether the Museum possessed any skin of the Himalayan 

 Cuckoo. Dr. Warth very kindly took particular pains to ascertain 

 the facts, and he wrote that not only was there no specimen of 

 the species in the Museum, but that, to the best of his knowledge 

 and belief, no specimen had ever been obtained in Southern India. 

 This Avas confirmed by Mr. Daly, who has an extensive kno\Aledge 

 of South Indian birds. I think, after this evidence, it is impossible 

 to come to any other conclusion than that the Himalayan Cuckoo 

 does not occur in Southern India, and that Vahl's C. intermedium 

 must have been C. poliocephalus. 



As none of the names hitherto employed for this Cuckoo apply 

 to it, the question arises as to the earliest undoubted term. The 

 ^ That is, in Hindustani, the Kyphul (or fruit of the Ky tree) is ripe. 



