CUCULUS , MICROPTEETTS. 22 9 



12 inches in length, which some unite with Gould's bird, discovered many years after in the Himalayas, but 

 which others join with C. himalayanus of Vigors, a perfectly different bird, and not belonging to the terminal- 

 bar-tailed group at all. It is scarcely possible to affirm what the Gueulus striatus of Drapiez really was ; it was 

 evidently an immature bird, as the outer primaries were indented with rufous ; the dimensions of the wing were 

 unfortunately not stated : taking all things into consideration it appears to me to have belonged to the brown 

 bar-tailed section and not to the ashy one, of which C. canorus is the type. C. himalayanus is a miniature of 

 this latter. Mr. Seebohm procured it on the Yenesay river ; it migrates to China and Japan, and goes down 

 to the Malay archipelago in winter ; but so does the present species. In the British Museum is a specimen 

 from Sumatra labelled 0. affinis, with the wing 8-2, bill to gape 1-1 (this is identical with a Ceylonese example), 

 and another from the Himalayas labelled C. micropterus (this has, perhaps, the bars on the lower parts broader, 

 and is slightly darker on the throat and chest than the Ceylon bird ; the bill across the gape is 0-75 inch, while 

 the latter measures 0-71). Mr. Oates measured a male shot in Pegu as, wing 8-25 inches, bill from gape 1-35 ; 

 a female, wing 7 - 6, bill from gape 1'3. The bills are very large in these, and Mr. Hume considers C. mia-opterus 

 to refer to these large-billed birds. Perhaps there are two races of this Cuckoo in the Himalayas ; but we do 

 not know whether Gould's type had an exceedingly large bill or not. The Ceylonese birds which I have seen 

 certainly are not so large in the bill as these latter specimens ; but they evidently migrate from the Himalayas, 

 and they most decidedly are not C. himalayanus. "What the C. affinis of Lord A. Hay was is not quite clear. 

 I cannot therefore apply bis name to our bird, nor can I Drapiez's, if his species is to be considered the same 

 as Vigors's (C himalayanus, an altogether different type of bird), and therefore I must allow it to stand under 

 Gould's name as heretofore. 



Distribution. — This Cuckoo arrives in Ceylon during the month of October ; but apparently its numbers 

 are extremely limited, as but comparatively few examples have ever been recorded from the island. Kelaart 

 speaks of it as a mountain species of rare occurrence and found in Dimbulla ; Layard did not meet with it. 

 Holdsworth writes that " the only two examples he met with were obtained in half-cultivated land in low 

 country near Colombo." These were probably in migration to the hills at the time they were killed. I 

 have shot it in the Kottowe forest near Galle, and have seen it in the same district on another occasion. 

 It probably affects the subsidiary hills in the south-west of the island as much as any other part of the low 

 country. I met with a Cuckoo, which I did not procure, but which I identify as belonging to this species, 

 in the forests between Anaradjapura and Trincomalie ; and Captain Wade, of the 57th Regiment, killed an 

 immature individual at Nalanda at the north base of the Kandyan ranges ; in addition to which I have seen 

 it in the collection of Messrs. Whyte and Co., the specimen having been procured in Dumbara. It is doubtless 

 a commoner species in reality than it appears to be, but, being a denizen of the forests, escapes nearly all 

 observation during the period of its visit. 



There is, I think, no doubt that this species migrates to Ceylon via the south of India from the Himalayan 

 region ; it is evidently very rare in the Peninsula. I notice that Messrs. Bourdillon and Fairbank do not 

 record it in either of their lists from the southern hills ; the latter notes it from Ahmednagar, but makes no 

 comment as to its scarcity or otherwise. Jerdon found it rare on the Malabar coast and in the Carnatic, but 

 " tolerably common in the jungles of Central India, as at Nagpore, Chanda, Mhow, and Saugor." 



Taking the large-billed race to be only a local variety of the species which visits Ceylon, we find 

 Mr. Hume recording this Cuckoo as "common throughout Lower and Eastern Bengal, and even \ip into the 

 lower valleys of the Himalayas, in Sikkim, Bhootan, and Assam." In Pegu, according to Mr. Oates, it is 

 numerous everywhere, but less so in the plains than in the hills. From Burmah it finds its way eastwards 

 to China, where Swinhoe found it on the Upper Yangtsze ; southwards it migrates in the cool season through 

 the Malaccan peninsula to the archipelago, whence it has been procured in Java and Sumatra, and probably 

 will some day be obtained in Borneo, if it has not been already met with there. Lord Tweeddale refers with 

 aoubt four examples procured in the Andamans by Lieut. Ramsay to this species ; but the measurements of the 

 wings, viz. 7"0 and 7"37 inches, are almost too small for C. micropterus. 



Habits. — The Indian Cuckoo frequents high jungle and forest, particularly that on the sides of hills. It 

 is a shy bird and keeps, as far as I have observed, to the tops of tall trees. It is very Hawk-like in flight, having 

 much the appearance of a small Accipitre as it wings its way from the summit of one lofty tree to another. 

 I noticed it in the Kottowe forest fly out of the upper branches of an enormous Hora-tree, and after proceeding 



