CUCKOO. 115 



colour ; throat, under side of the neck, and upper breast, of a pale ash- 

 colour ; the latter in some inclining- to rufous brown ; the lower breast 

 and belly white, marked with transverse undulating black lines ; the 

 quill feathers dusky ; the inner webs barred with oval white spots ; the 

 tail consists of ten feathers, of unequal length ; the two middle ones 

 black, dashed with ash-colour, and tipped with white ; the rest black, 

 marked with white spots on each side of the shaft ; in some the lateral 

 feathers have white spots only on their interior webs, but are all tipped 

 with white. 



The female is rather less, and in general differs from the other sex in 

 the neck and breast being of a tawnyish brown, barred with dusky, and 

 the coverts of the wings marked with light ferruginous spots ; the 

 markings on the tail and quill-feathers much like the male, only the 

 edges of the spots are inclining to reddish brown ; the legs of both sexes 

 short and yellow. The outer-tail feather and the first quill-feather are 

 remarkably short. 



We believe this bird does not entirely throw off its nestling- feathers 

 till the second year's moulting ; for in three specimens before us, killed 

 the same season, (two males and a female,) the thirteenth and three 

 succeeding quill-feathers, and the three greater coverts impending them, 

 are barred with brown and ferruginous. *But as the young of the 

 Cuckoo differs so materially in the first year's plumage from the adult, 

 it may not be improper to give a description, for the information of 

 those who may wish to know the distinction. The irides are greyish ; 

 the whole upper part of the plumage is a mixture of dusky black and 

 ferruginous, in transverse bars, except the forehead and a patch on the 

 back of the head, which in this specimen is white, and the tips of the 

 scapulars pale : the feathers of the whole under parts are sullied white, 

 with distant transverse bars of dusky black. In general each feather 

 possesses two or three bars : the sides of the neck and breast tinged 

 with rufous ; the lateral feathers of the tail, and the inner webs of the 

 quills, more or less barred with white ; the coverts of the tail, which, as 

 well as those on the rump, are unusually long, dashed with cinereous, 

 and slightly tipped with white. 



The young Cuckoo, on account of its reddish brown plumage, has 

 by some naturalists been ranked as a distinct species, under the name 

 of the Red Cuckoo (C rufus, Brisson.) But there can be no doubt 

 of the mistake. 



M. Payrandeau states distinctly, on the authority of a series of 

 specimens, as well as of repeated dissection, that both the male and 

 female young of the common Cuckoo, before the first moult, have the 



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