230 CUCULTTS MICROPTERUS. 



a short distance alight on the very top of an equally high dead trunk. Its habit of keeping to the uppermost 

 branches of these giants of the forest leads to its being seldom procured. Jerdon writes that it "repeats its 

 call more frecpiently than other Cuckoos; this," he remarks, "is a double note of two syllables each — a fine, 

 melodious, pleasing whistle, which the natives of Bengal attempt to immitate by their name Bokutako." Mr. 

 Oates says that its note is double and very melodious, and that it selects the topmost bough of a tree (generally 

 a dead one) and remains calling there for a quarter of an hour or more. Its loquacious habit, like that of 

 the Plaintive Cuckoo, is evidently confined to the breeding-season ; I never heard it, on the several occasions 

 I have seen it in Ceylon, utter a note. 



Its stomach is highly villous, and its principal food consists of caterpillars. 



Its eggs have not yet been identified; but some suppose that it lays in the nests of Babblers (Malacocerci) . 



