THE BANDED BAY CUCKOO. 
107 
491. CUCULUS SONNEEATII. 
THE BANDED BAY CUCKOO. 
Cuculus sonneratii, Lath. Ind. Orn. i. p. 215 ; Jenl. B. hid. i. p. 325 ; Wald. 
Trans. Zool. Soc. viii. p. 55 Bl. B. Bunn. p. 80 ; Anders. Yunnan Exped. p. 587 ; 
Hume 8j- Dav. S. F. vi. p. 156; Legge, Birds Ceylon, p. 233; Hume, S. F. viii. 
p. 88 ; Vidal, S. F. ix. p. 54. 
Description. — Above greenish dusky, numerously cross-barred with 
rufous (which colour, indeed, may be said to predominate), excejot on the 
coverts of the primaries ; quills dusky rufous on the edge of the outer web, 
pale internally; tail rufous, with a broad dusky bar near the end; the 
outer webs nearly dusky and the tip white, and the inner webs with 
narrow bars ; the whole underparts, from the throat, white, very faintly 
tinged with fulvous on the flanks and marked with numerous narrow dusky 
cross bars ; sides of head and neck also white, similarly barred ; but the 
ear-coverts are coloured like the back, and frontal feathers are while at the 
base, showing conspicuously just over the bill. 
" The young are more closely barred than adults, with pale rufescent 
on a blackish ground, and the breast is white banded with dusky ; and 
aged indiyiduals have the back and wings very faintly barred, the tail with 
the cenirjil feathers nearly all black, the edges scolloped with rufous and 
the outer feathers with dusky .^^ {Jerdon.) 
Irides brown ; legs greenish grey; bill dusky; orbits grey. [Vidal.) 
Length 9*5 inches, tail 4*5, wing 4*8, tarsus "7, bill from gape I'l. 
As I have never procured this species in Burmah, and specimens are 
somewhat rare in English collections, I have preferred to give Dr. Jerdon^s 
careful description. 
The Banded Bay Cuckoo was obtained at Thayetmyo by Capt. Wardlaw 
Ramsay, and it is recorded from Tenasserim by Mr. Blyth. It is 
apparently rare in Burmah. 
It extends through the Indo-Burmese countries, and is found over a 
great part of the peninsula of India with Ceylon. 
Nothing is known regarding its nidification ; but, like other true 
Cuckoos, it probably lays in the nests of other birds. 
C. pravatus from Malay ana is similar, but constantly smaller, the wing 
seldom exceeding 4*4 inches in length. Mr. Blyth states c.) that 
C. poliocephalus can hardly fail to occur in Burmah; it has not, however, 
been yet recorded from this country, and I consequently do not enter it 
in my work. It is of an ashy colour above ; the chin and throat are pale 
ashy, and the remainder of the lower plumage is white barred with duvsky ; 
and the wing is about 5*5 inches in length. 
