THE CALIFORNIA CUCKOO. 25 



8. Coccyzus americanus occidentalis Ridgway. 



CALIFORNIA CUCKOO. 



Coccyzus americanus occidentalis Eidgway, Manual North American Birds, 1887, 273. 

 (B _, C — , E 387 part, 429 part, U 387a.) 



Geographical range: Western Nortli America; north to the southern portions of 

 British Columbia; east to the Kocky Mountains and southern Texas; south over the table- 

 lands of Mexico ; northern Lower California. 



The breeding range of the CaHfomia Cuckoo, for which the name "Western 

 Yellow-billed Cuckoo" seems to be more appropriate, is coextensive with its 

 distribution in the United States. As far as yet known it reaches the northern 

 limits of its breeding range about latitude 50° 45', near Kamloops, in British 

 Columbia, and its southern and eastern limits in the lower Rio Grande Valley, 

 in southern Texas. The eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains appear to form 

 the eastern limits of its range in this direction. Although nowhere common, it 

 seems to be generally distributed over the Pacific Coast States and Territories. 



Mr. F. Stephens writes me: "I consider the California Cuckoo a rare sum- 

 mer resident of the valleys of southern California. The only instance of its 

 breeding here, that I know of, was in the San Bernardino Valley; I saw the 

 parent fly from the nest, which was in a slender willow growing in a thicket in 

 a moist location. The little tree leaned, but was too strong to admit of my 

 pulling the nest within reach; I therefore attempted to climb to the nest and 

 succeeded in spilling the eggs, which broke on striking the ground. The 

 fragments were pale green. The eggs were fresh and appeared to be two in 

 number. I think the date was the latter part of May, 1882." 



Mr. Charles A. Allen, of Nicasio, has found this subspecies breeding in the 

 willow thickets along the Sacramento River, California, where it appears to be 

 not uncommon in suitable localities. Dr. Clinton T. Cooke considers it moder- 

 ately common in the vicinity of Salem, Oregon, and Mr. R. H. Lawrence met 

 with it occasionally in the Columbia River Valley, in Clarke County, Washington. 

 It appears to reach the center of its abundance, the lower Rio Grrande Valley, 

 in Texas, about the beginning of April, and sometimes nests there in the latter 

 part of this month, but ordinarily not before May, while in southern Arizona it 

 appears to arrive considerably later. I noticed it first on June 10, 1872, among 

 the willows in the Rillito Creek bottom, and again on the 19th, but failed to 

 find a nest before July 17, but after this date I found several others; two of 

 these as late as August 22. Its general habits, call notes, and food are very 

 similar to those of its somewhat smaller eastern relative, and excepting this 

 difference and its stouter and larger beak, it is otherwise indistinguishable. On 

 the whole, it appears to be more common west of the Sierra Nevada and the 

 Cascade Mountains than in the interior^, where I only met with it on a single 

 occasion, near Old Fort Boise, at Keeneys Ferry, on the Oregon side of Snake 

 River, and here I found a nest of this subspecies on August 2, 1876, containing 



