LAND BIRDS. 337 
Order XIV. COCCYGES. Cuckoos, Kingfishers, etc. 
KEY TO FAMILIES. 
A. Toes two before and two behind, the front toes separate to the base; 
bill about as long as head. Family 438. Cuculide. Cuckoos. 
(Only two Michigan species). 
AA. Toes three in front and one behind, two of the front toes grown together 
for half their length; bill longer than head, its cutting edges minutely 
saw-toothed. Family 45. Alcedinide. LKinefishers. (Only one 
Michigan species). 
Family 43. CUCULID®. Cuckoos. 
KEY TO SPECIES. 
A. Basal half of lower mandible yellow; most of the tail-feathers white 
tipped, the outer ones for an inch or more (Fig. 84). Yellow- 
billed Cuckoo. No. 161. 
AA. Bill all black; tail-feathers with narrow white tips, the longest tip not 
half an inch (Fig. 86). Black-billed Cuckoo. No. 162. 
161. Yellow-billed Cuckoo. Coccyzus americanus americanus (Linn.). 
(387) 
Synonyms: Rain-crow, Rain-dove, Kow-Kow, Chow-Chow.—Cuculus americanus, 
Linn., 1758.—Coccyzus americanus, Bonap., 1824, and authors generally. 
Plate XXXII and Figures 84, 885. 
Reference to the plate will serve to separate the cuckoo from all other 
birds, and the present species may be known from the only other Michigan 
cuckoo by the yellow lower jaw, the cinnamon in the wings, and the large 
white ‘‘thumb-marks” on the outer tail-feathers (Compare figures 84 and 
86). 
Teena aineoba temperate North America, breeding from Florida 
north to New Brunswick, Canada, and Minnesota, west to the eastern 
border of the Plains, and south in winter to Costa Rica and the West Indies. 
The Yellow-billed Cuckoo is generally distributed throughout the state 
but probably is somewhat less common in the northern sections than farther 
south; it is, however, nowhere : 
abundant and although at the 
proper season you may see or 
hear cuckoos almost any day 
or night, it would be difficult in Fig. 84. Outer tail-feathers of , vellow-billed Cuckoo. 
most places to find half a dozen uke ee Gee aa 
specimens in a half day’s hunt- Sbay 
ing. The two species of cuckoo are so similar in general appearance and so 
often confounded that most of our notes for the state are badly mixed and 
43 
