1842.] Malayan species of Cuculidot. 927 



22. Ph. pyrrhocephalus ; Cuculus pyrrhocephalus, Gmelin ; Ph. 

 leucogaster, Dumeril. (White-bellied Malkoha.) I quote the fol- 

 lowing description from Latham. " The length of this bird is sixteen 

 inches; weight four oz. Bill strong, very thick at the base, and bend- 

 ing downward ; its colour greenish-yellow : top and hind-part of 

 the head and neck, under the jaws, greenish-black, with a slender 

 white streak down the shafts of the feathers, appearing, from the 

 narrowness of those about the head, as numerous specks : sides of the 

 head, and round the eyes, wholly bare of feathers, appearing rough or 

 granulated, and of a reddish-orange colour [crimson in the living 

 bird?], bounded beneath with white: the middle of the crown fea- 

 thered : fore-part of the neck, back, and wings, greenish-black, with a 

 gloss of green on the last : tail very long, cuneiform, greenish-black, 

 appearing glossy in some lights, the feathers white for nearly one-third 

 from the end: breast and belly white: the legs brown, with^ellowish 

 scales: wings reaching a little beyond the middle of the tail [an 

 extraordinary elongation in this genus, and perhaps owing to the 

 manner in which the skin described had been prepared]. Inhabits 

 Ceylon, where it is called Malkoha. A specimen, in Mr. Daniell's 

 drawings, was fully eighteen inches long, and named Maal-Kenda- 

 Eitah." Also said to inhabit Africa. 



Others have round nostrils placed basally. 



23. Ph. viridis, Lavaillant : le Rouverdin, Id. ; Ph. curvirostris, 

 Shaw, Nat Misc. pi. 905; Ph. tricolor, Id., Zool. IX, 61; Ph. 

 melanognathus, Horsfield, Lin. Trans. XIII, pt. I, p. 178, and Cucu- 

 lus melanognathus. Raffles, Ibid. pt. II, p. 287. (Red-breasted 

 Malkoha.) About eighteen inches long, of which the middle tail- 

 feathers measure ten inches and a half, and the outermost four inches 

 and a half less; wing six inches and a half; bill to forehead (in 

 a straight line) an inch and a half, and an inch and three-quarters 

 to gape; tarse an inch and a half. The bare skin around the eye 

 less developed than in the last species, but still large and extending 

 forward to the bill, being of a bright red colour in the living bird ; 

 the irides dark ; and feet lead-coloured. Back and wings dark and 

 glossy bluish-green, continued along the rump and two-thirds of the 

 tail in one specimen before me, while in another the entire central 

 pair of tail-feathers is of this hue, and there is more of it on the rest 



