cuckow. 263 



back and wings dirty grey brown ; quills paler ; middle tail feathers 

 marked with a double row of white spots ; legs yellow. 



Inhabits Courland. Several other Varieties might be mentioned, 

 but we trust that the above will suffice, especially when it is 

 considered how different the plumage of the young and adult is 

 from each other, and how various is their appearance in the progress 

 towards perfection. 



Among some specimens from New-Holland, I observed one, 

 having the general appearance of the Common Sort ; above greenish 

 brown, beneath as in that bird ; quills and tail the same, but more 

 obscure ; bill and legs as in the Common one. 



Buffon talks of a Cuckow, similar to ours, but larger, mentioned 

 by travellers, as common at Loango, in Africa, which repeats the 

 word Cuckow, like that bird, but in different inflexions of voice, 

 and that the male and female together go through the whole eight 

 notes of the gamut, the male first sounding the three first, after 

 which he is accompanied by a female through the rest of the octave.* 

 Dr. Horsfield met with one at Java, very like our European Species, 

 the difference between the two being very slight; but says it is very 

 rare there.f 



2— DUNMUN CUCKOW. 



Le Coucou vulgaire d'Afrique, Levail. Afr. v. pi. 200, 201. 

 Cuculus gularis, Gen. Zool. ix. p. S3, pi. 17. 



LENGTH about eleven inches. Bill one inch, bent at the tip, 

 pale, with the end dusky ; throat whitish ; head, neck, breast, back, 

 rump, and upper tail coverts fine blue grey; wing coverts the same, 

 the rest of the wing pale brown ; between the two a broad bar of 



* Bv/.vi. p. 354. II. f Lin. Trans. xm. p. 179. 



