THE EUROPEAN CUCKOO. 
103 
Suborder COCCYGES Z Y GO D ACTY 
Family CUCULID.E. 
Subfamily CUCULINiE. 
Genus CUCULUS, Linn. 
488. CUCULUB CAE"0IIUS. 
THE EUROPEAN CUCKOO. 
Cuculus canorus, Linn. Sijst. Nat, i. p. 168 ; Jenl. B. Ind. i. p. 322 ; Hume, Nests 
and Eggs, p. 133 ; Wald. Trans. Zool. Soc. viii. p. 115 ; Hume, S. F. iii. p. 78 ; 
Bl. B. Burm. p. 79; Hume, S. F. iv. p. 288; Wardlaio Ramsay, Ibis, 1877, 
p. 458 ; David et Oust. Ois. Chine, p. 65 ; Legge, Birds Ceylon, p. 221 ; Atiders. 
Yunnan Exped. p. 586 ; Dresser, Birds Eur. v. p. 199, pi. ; Hume ^ Dav. S. F. 
vi. p. 156 ; Hiwie, 8. F. viii. p. 88 ; Scully, S. F. viii. p. 253 ; Oates, S. F. x. 
p. 192. 
Description. — Male and female. The whole upper plumage ashy blue ; 
the wings browD, barred with white on the inner webs ; tail ashy brown, 
tipped with white and spotted with white along the shafts ; sides of the 
head, chin, throat and upper breast clear pale ashy ; remainder of lower 
plumage pale fulvous, narrowly barred with black ; under tail-coverts with 
hardly any bars or marks. 
The young bird has the whole upper plumage, wings and tail barred 
with ferruginous and the feathers tipped white, and the whole lower 
plumage is white barred with brown. 
Bill dusky horn, yellowish at the base and edges ; gape orange-yellow ; 
iris and legs yellow. The young have the iris brown ; edges of the eyelids 
yellow ; eyelids plumbeous ; mouth deep orange ; upper mandible dark 
brown; lower mandible pale green ; legs yellow ; claws yellowish brown. 
Length 13 inches, tail 7, wing 8, tarsus '8, bill from gape 1*2. The 
female is rather smaller. 
The European Cuckoo is of smaller size in Burmah, but does not 
otherwise differ from the European bird. 
This well-known Cuckoo is tolerably abundant from August to February 
round about the towns of Pegu and Kyeikpadein and probably throughout 
the Pegu Division, for I procured a specimen at Prome in November 
