YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO. 
COCCYGUS AMERICANUS. 
HE yellow-billed cuckoo, though he tries hard to 
make a showing of vocal talent, succeeds only in 
producing a slovenly, guttural blubbering, with barely 
tone enough to give positive pitch. The beginning of this 
effort is a sepulchral and somewhat protracted sound, 
which bursts into several rapid, boisterous bubbles, fol- 
lowed by others softer and slower, farther and farther 
apart. 
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The yellow-breasted chat exhibits the same rhythmic 
peculiarity in his chattings, and so does the woodpecker, 
drumming on a board or dry limb for the mere sound of 
it; but in quality nothing can be compared with this slop- 
ping performance, unless it be that of the loose-mouthed 
hound lapping from a pan of milk. 
The cuckoos, graceful, beautiful birds, and ever rapt in 
solemn revery, are solitary voices, seldom heard more than 
one at a time. 
