OF VIRGINIA 149 
to thirty feet up in a tree in town. The eggs are a delicate 
shade of greenish-blue, unspotted, and number from three 
to four. Size, 1.20x.90. Fresh eges May 5th to 20th. 
Only one brood a season. They arrive about April 25th 
and depart for the south about October 5th to 10th. 
Their food consists of caterpillars, worms, butterflies, 
grasshoppers, numerous insect species, beetles, and wild 
erapes and berries, thus making them a very beneficial 
bird from an agricultural standpoint. 
[388]. Coecyzus-erythrophthalmus (Wilson). Black- 
billed Cuckoo. 
Ranee.—North and South America. Breeds mainly 
in the Transition zone from southeastern Alberta, southern 
Manitoba, southern Quebec, and Prince Edward Island 
south to Kansas, Arkansas, North Carolina, and mountains 
of Georgia; winters in South America from Colombia 
to Peru. 
This species of cuckoo I have not found breeding in 
Tidewater Virginia, though a few may possibly breed 
there, but as we go further inland they become fairly 
common. Professor Smyth reports it as abundant at 
Blacksburg, where it arrives April 26th to May 9th, and 
my father found it fairly common at Goshen, Massanetta, 
and Hot Springs, where finding young in the nest in 
August leads him to believe they rear two broods. It 
probably migrates southward with the preceding species in 
the fall. Fresh eggs May 5th to 10th for first setting, 
which number three to four, a dark greenish-blue, 
unmarked. Size, 1.08x.84. Both color and size of eggs 
