386 BRITISH BIRDS. 



CUCULUS GLANDARIUS. 

 GREAT SPOTTED CUCKOO. 



(Plate 68.) 



Cuculus andalusiss, Briss. 0)-n. iv. p. 126 (1760). 



Cuculus glandariua, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 169 (1766) ; et auctorum plurimorum — 



Omelin, Latham, {Gray), (JIartlaub), (Salvin), (^Dresser), {Newton), Sie. 

 Cuculus pisanus, Gmel. Syst. Nat. i. p. 416 (1788). 

 Cuculus melissoplionus, Vieill. N. Diet. d'Hist. Nat. viii. p. 230 (1817). 

 Coccyzua pisanus (Cfmel) Audouin, Expl. PL Savig. Ois. d'Egypte, p. 266 (1825). 

 Coccysua glandarius (Linn.), iSavi, Orn. Tosc. i. p. 164 (1827). 

 Cuculus maci'ourus, Brehm, Vog. DeutscM. p. 153 (1831). 

 Cuculus gi'acilis, Brehm, Vog. DeutscM. p. 154 (1831j. 



Coccystes glandarius (Linn.), Gloger, Handb. Viig. Eur. p. 449 (1834). ^ 



Oxylophus glandarius (lAnn.), Bonap. Comp. List B. Eur. 8f N. Amer. p. 40 (1888). 

 Cuculus phaiopterus, MUpp.Jide Bonap. Consp. p. 102 (1850). 



The claim of the Great Spotted Cuckoo to be included in the British 

 list is very slender, and rests on two examples only. The first of these 

 was said to have been caught in Ireland on the island of Omaghj co. Gal- 

 way, in the month of March 1843. The bird was being chased by Hawks, 

 and took refuge in a hole in a stone fence, where it was taken alive 

 and kept in confinement for several days. This specimen came into the 

 possession of Mr. Creighton, of Clif den, and was ultimately secured for the 

 Trinity College Museum at Dublin, but is now lost (Ball, Ann. Nat. Hist. 

 1843, xii. p. 149). A second specimen was shot near Bellingham, in 

 Northumberland, on the 5th of August, 1870, and is now in the Newcastle 

 Museum (Hancock, ' Birds of North, and Durh.' p. 27) . 



The Great Spotted Cuckoo is a summer visitor to the Spanish Peninsula, 

 Palestine, Asia Minor, and Persia, occasionally visiting South Russia, 

 Italy, and Greece. It is a partial resident throughout North Africa, and 

 winters throughout South Africa ; it is also an accidental visitor to South 

 France and Germany, and occasionally strays to the Canaries. 



The Great Spotted Cuckoo is a well-known summer migrant to several 

 parts of South Europe, where it arrives rather earlier than the Common 

 Cuckoo. Irby says that at Gibraltar it generally appears between the 7th 

 and the 38th of March ; in Palestine Canon Tristram observed it as early 

 as the 4th of March ; but in Asia Minor it does not arrive before the end 

 of that month. It retires southwards rather early in the autumn, the 

 latest recorded by Irby at Gibraltar being on the 7th of August. During 

 his last journey to Palestine, Tristram met with a flock of this bird which 

 had not yet dispersed on the 22nd of April. Unlike the Common Cuckoo 



