CUCULINiE. 337 



This remarkable Cuckoo, clad so completely in the guise of 

 the Common King-crow {Dicruriis macrocercus), is found, though 

 sparingly, throughout India. I have procured it on the Malabar 

 coast, the Wynaad, in Central India, and at Darjeeling. It has 

 been found in other parts of the Himalayas, also in Ceylon, where 

 it is said not to be rare, and in Tenasserlm and Burmah. Does this 

 Cuckoo select the nest of the Drongo in which to deposit her 

 eggs? If so, the foste.-parents would hardly be undeceived even 

 when the bird had arrived at maturity. One day, in Upper Burmah, 

 I saw a King-crow pursuing what at first I believed to be another 

 of his own species ; but a peculiar call that the pursued bird was 

 uttering, and some white in its plumage, which I observed as it 

 passed close to me, led me to suppose that it was a Drongo-cuckoo, 

 which had perhaps been detected (this being the breeding season)^ 

 about the nest of the Dicrurus. Mr. Blyth relates that he 

 obtained a pure white ego; in the same nest with four e<2j2;s of V. 

 macrocercus, and which, he remarks, may have been that of tlie 

 Drongo-cuckoo. 



I am ignorant of the note of this Cuckoo, but it is probably 

 similar in character to that of Polypliasia ; for Horsfield named the 

 Malayan race from its pUuntive call. I once or twice, in the valley 

 of the Rungnoo, near Darjeeling, heard what I considered to be the 

 call of l\ nif/ra; but I never procured that bird in Sikhim, and 

 the call may have been that of S. dicruroides. 



A second species of this genus exists in the (7. lugubris of 

 Horsfield ; which, indeed, approaches our bird very closely, and is 

 doubtfully distinct, according to Strickland ; but it appears to be 

 always a smaller race, and with the tail less distinctly forked 

 tlian in our Indian bird. 



Gen. Chryoscocctx, Boio. 



Syn. Chalciies, Lesson. 



Char. — Bill as in Caculus, but a little more depressed at the 

 base, and quite entire at tip ; wings pointed ; 2nd quill longer than 

 the 4th ; 3rd nearly as long ; the feathers of the rump and 

 upper tail-coverts, soft ; and tarsi very short and much plumed. 



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