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once saw a Cuckoo on the mainland in July." Dr. Kriiper says that it is a very well-known 

 bird in Greece, and breeds sparingly at high altitudes in the mountains. It usually arrives in 

 April; and he heard it first in the Parnassus in 1865 on the 25th April, in 1866 on the 15th, 

 and in Acarnania in 1869 on the 14th of that month. It breeds in May; and he always found 

 its eggs in the nests of Sylvia orphea. In May 1873 he obtained a young bird in the Parnassus 

 which had been brought up by a Stone-Chat, and saw one near Smyrna being fed by a Black- 

 eared Chat. In the summer it avoids the plains. Throughout Southern Germany it is numerous 

 during the summer ; and Von Tschusi-Schmidhofen states that in the Biesengebirge it is to be 

 met with above the bush-region. Messrs. Danford and Harvie-Brown also, who state that it is 

 common in the woods, plains, and mountains of Transylvania, add (Ibis, 1875, p. 299) that " it 

 is found even at the extreme limit of the wooded region, among the creeping pines." All along 

 the Danube down into Turkey it is to be met with in the summer season, as also in Southern 

 Russia, where it arrives in the latter half of April. Von Nordmann remarks that most of the 

 rufous-plumaged or hepatic birds killed there in May and June proved on examination to be 

 females. In Asia Minor the Cuckoo is common ; and Dr. Kriiper writes that he first observed 

 it from the 25th of March to the 14th April near Smyrna, and in the autumn as late as the 21st 

 September. In Palestine it arrived, Canon Tristram writes (Ibis, 1866, p. 283), much later than 

 the Great Spotted Cuckoo. " We did not observe the common Cuckoo," he writes, " before the 

 30th of March. It is generally spread over the country, and, unlike its ally, is particularly 

 abundant in the Jordan valley, where it is ceaselessly pursued with noisy clamours by the 

 Crateropus chalybeius. The only egg of this Cuckoo we found was near Jericho, in the nest of 

 a Desert-Lark, Ammomanes isabellinus." Mr. C. W. Wyatt saw the common Cuckoo twice early 

 in April on the peninsula of Sinai, and says that a few days later it was common enough along 

 the highlands of Edom. And it is also found in North-east Africa, where, however, Captain 

 Shelley says, it is not common at any season. Von Heuglin states that in Egypt the Cuckoo 

 arrives from the south in March, and he saw it until the early part of May. In August it is 

 again on its journey back; and he shot an old male in the Bogos country as early as the end of 

 July. " During my extensive journeys," he writes (Orn. N.O.-Afr. p. 780), " in Africa and Arabia 

 I never heard the well-known cry of the Cuckoo, which it only utters in Europe during the 

 pairing-season ; and Jesse and Brehm say the same. But Professor Hartmann states the contrary ; 

 for he says he heard it March at Der, in Lower Nubia, in April near Old Dongolah, early in 

 May in the woods of North Sennaar, in September near New Dongolah, and in October near Siut. 

 In all specimens we examined in Africa we found the iris more or less of a deep brown colour, 

 from dull brown to umber." In North-west Africa it is also tolerably common. Mr. Salvin met 

 with it late in March near Sidi Youssef ; and Loche records it as found in Algeria. Mr. C. F. 

 Tyrwhitt Drake states that it arrives in Morocco in the spring ; and, according to Favier (fide 

 Colonel Irby, I. c), it is " more abundant near Tangier than the Great Spotted Cuckoo ; it is 

 seen during passage in pairs, which cross to Europe in April and May, and return in August to 

 winter, probably, in the interior of Africa. Some, however, remain during summer awaiting the 

 return of the autumnal migration." Vernon Harcourt includes it in his list of birds occurring 

 in Madeira; and Dr. C. Bolle states (J. f. O. 1857, p. 324) that it is said to have been heard 

 in Fuerteventura. How far south it migrates in Africa it is rather difficult to determine. 



