CUCULID^—COCCYGIN^ : AMERICAN CUCKOOS. 
475 
saddled on a branch or in a fork. Though not liabitually parasitic, they often slip an egg in 
other birds' nests, or in each other's. Oviposition is tardy or irregular ; the nests usually con- 
tahi eggs in different stages of development, or eggs and young together. They are well-known 
inhabitants of our streets and parks as well as of woodland, noted for their loud, jerky cries, 
which they are supposed to utter most frequently in fiilling weather, whence their popular 
name, "rain-crow." Migratory, insectivorous, and frugivorous. 
Analysis of Species. 
Bill black and bluish. 
White below. Wings with little or no cinnamon. Tail-feathers not broadly white-ended. 
erythrophthalvius 428 
Bill black and yellow. Tail-feathers broadly white-ended. 
White below. Wings extensively cinnamon americanus 429 
Tawny below. Ears dusky seniculus 430 
Fig. 327. — Yellow-billed Cuckoo, J nat. size. (From Brehm.) 
428. C. erythrophthal'mus. (Gr. cpvBpos, eruthros, reddish ; 6(f)daKfi6i, ophthalmos, eye.) Black- 
billed Cuckoo. $ 9 : Bill blackish except occasionally a trace of yellowish, usually bluish 
at base below. Above, satiny olive-gray. Below, pure white, sometimes with a faint tawny 
tinge on the fore-parts. Wings with little or no rufous. Lateral tail-feathers not contrasting 
with the central, their tips for a short distance blackish, then obscurely white ; no bold contrast 
of black with large white spaces. Bare circumocular space livid ; edges of eyelids red. Length 
11.00-12.00 ; extent about 15.50 ; wing 5.00-5.50; tail 6.00-6.50 ; bill under an inch. Very 
