902 A Monograph of the Indian and [No. 130. 



Cape colony]. Its well known note was often heard in Goomsoor." 

 Colonel Sykes mentions it as found, though rarely, in the Bombay 

 Deccan ; and Major Franklin designates it." the common Cuckoo of 

 India": but I have never yet heard its note in the vicinity of Calcutta, 

 though I possessed a living specimen for some months which was taken 

 in the neighbourhood. It is a very rare bird, according to Dr. Horsfield, 

 in Java, and in the specimens from that island " a very slight differ- 

 ence from the bird as it occurs in Europe is observed/' Can it -be, 

 therefore, that the nearly allied C. micropterus is here mistaken for 

 it ? I possess an example of the latter from the Malay peninsula, 

 and the Javanese C. striatus of M. Drapiez would seem to be no 

 other. The C. canorus measures fourteen inches long, by twenty- 

 six inches across ; wing from bend eight inches and three-quarters, and 

 tail seven inches, its outermost feathers two inches shorter; bill to 

 forehead (through the feathers) an inch, and to gape an inch and 

 three-sixteenths ; tarse seven-eighths of an inch. 



4. C. micropterus, Gould, P. Z. S. 1837, P- 137; probably C. 

 striatus, Drapiez, Diet. Class. d'Hist. Nat. IV., 570* (1823); Dun- 

 mun Cuckoo, var. A., Latham, Gen. Hist. III., 264, — that previously 

 described by him being either a variety, or (more probably) merely 

 an imperfectly moulted young specimen, retaining its nestling white- 

 tipped larger wing-coverts, — erroneously (I presume) referred by 

 this author to the Coucou vulgaire d'Afrique of Levaillant, or C 

 gularis figured and described in Shaw's Zoology (IX, 83), which 

 would seem to be very closely allied. (Great-billed Cuckoo.) Dif- 

 fers from C. canorus in its inferior size, larger bill, the darker hue of its 

 upper-parts, and differently coloured iris, while its note is very dis- 

 tinct : length of a male twelve inches and a half, by twenty- three inches 



* "Taille, douze pouces. Parties superieures d'un brun cendre, bleuatre; remi- 

 ges brunes, frangees de blanchatre, le deux premieres dentelees de roussatre; rectrices 

 peu etagees [if we except the outermost pair, this holds good in C. micropterus], 

 noiratres, avec l'extremite et des taches le long de la tige blanches; gorge et devant 

 du cou d'un cendre bleuatre, tres-clair ; parties inferieures blanchatres, rayees transver- 

 salement de noir; bee noir, roussatre en dessous a sa.base; pieds rougeatres. De 

 Java. On nous a communique sous le nom de Cuculus dasypus, un espece de meme 

 taille venant egalement de Java, qui pourrait bien etre le Coucou a ventre raye 

 [striatus] dans son jeune age; il en differe en ce que les parties superieures sont 

 toutes traversers de bandes rousses, et qui la gorge et la devant du cou sont sem- 

 blables au restes des parties inferieures." 



