260 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



of these red Cuckoos [suggestive of their breeding before they 

 acquire the adult plumage], and in the month of April I have 

 seen a great many in the markets of Italian towns, indifferently 

 males and females, the grey birds very rarely, or not at all.' 

 He adds : — " Every one knows that in spring only grey Cuckoos 

 are found in the north, but amongst them are sometimes seen 

 individuals of a pale reddish tinge. That our Cuckoo should be 

 red during the first year of its life is not so strange when we 

 consider that it is reddish in its earliest stage, and that it 

 emigrates in this first plumage." 



Varying his phraseology, Temminck has also expressed his 

 views on this subject as follows (op. cit. p. 383) : — " The bird 

 to which naturalists refer under the name Coucou roux seems to 

 me to be nothing more than another phase of the Coucou gris, 

 probably the same bird a year old. Several naturalists have mis- 

 taken the young Cuckoo for the Coucou roux, because the plumage 

 of the young always shows slight traces of rufous bars. Others 

 have supposed the Coucou roux to be the female of the grey bird, 

 but they are equally mistaken, for there is no difference in the 

 plumage of the sexes. Several red Cuckoos which I have dis- 

 sected were males." 



This statement appears to have been generally overlooked by 

 subsequent writers on the subject. Mr. Seebohm, for example, 

 in his ' British Birds' (vol. ii. pp. 384-385), after correctly de- 

 scribing the nestling plumage as having the " upper parts barred 

 with chestnut and tipped with white," adds that "after the first 

 spring moult the difference between the sexes is much greater ; 

 the male loses nearly all the chestnut on his plumage, but retains 

 the white edges to the feathers ; whilst the female moults into 

 what is called the * hepatic' stage, in which the chestnut is 

 increased in brilliancy, and the white edges to the feathers dis- 

 appear." This, at least, Mr. Seebohm infers to be the case 

 from an examination of a large series of skins ; but that this view 

 requires modification is evident from Temminck's statement that 

 several red Cuckoos which he himself dissected were males. 



Mr. Seebohm further remarks (op. cit. p. 385) that " these 

 females just entering their second year do not breed," although 

 Temminck asserts that in early spring he has often followed for 

 hours pairs of red Cuckoos. 



The nestling plumage of the Cuckoo has been accurately de- 



