Genus XX. 
CUCULUS. CUCKOO* 
Species I. CUCULUS CAROLINENSIS. 
YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO. 
[Plate XXVIII. Fig. 1.] 
Cuculvs Aincricanvs, Linn. Si/sf. ed. 10, p. 111. — C.^tesb. i., 9. — L.\tii. i., 537. — 
Lc CoucoK de la Caroline^ Briss. iv., l]2.—Arct. Zool. 265, No. 155. 
A STR.\NGER -who visits the United States for the purpose of examin- 
ing their natural productions, and passes througli our woods in the month 
of May or June, ^Yill sometimes hear as he traverses the borders of deep, 
retired, high timbered hollows, an uncouth guttural sound or note, re- 
sembling the syllables kowe, kowe, kotve koive koive ! beginning slowly, 
but ending so rapidly, that the notes seem to run into each other, and 
vice verm ; he will hear this frequently without being able to discover 
the bird or animal from which it proceeds, as it is both shy and solitary, 
seeking always the thickest foliage for concealment. This is the Yel- 
loAV-billed Cuckoo, the subject of the present account. From the imita- 
tive sound of its note, it i.s known in many parts by the name of the 
Cow-bird ; it is also called in Virginia the Rain-Crow, being observed to 
be most clamorous immediately before rain. 
This species arrives in Pennsylvania, from the south, about the twenty- 
second of April, and spreads over the country as far at least as Lake 
Ontario ; is numerous in the Chickasaw and Choctaw nations ; and also 
breeds in the upper parts of Georgia ; preferring in all these places the 
borders of solitary swamps and apple-orchards. It leaves us, on its 
return southward, about the middle of September. 
The singular, I will not say unnatural, conduct of the European Cuckoo, 
[Cuczdu^ eanorus), ^Yhich never constructs a nest for itself, but drops its 
eggs in those of other birds, and abandons them to their mercy and 
management, is so universally known, and so proverbial, that the whole 
tribe of Cuckoos have, by some inconsiderate people, been stigmatized 
as destitute of all parental care and affection. Without attempting to 
account for this remarkable habit of the European species, far less to 
consider as an error what the wisdom of Heaven has imposed as a duty 
* This genus has been considerably restricted by recent ornithologists. The two 
species referred by Wilson to their genus belong to the genus Coccycus of Vieillot, 
adopted by Temminck. 
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