384 MR, J. H. GURNEY ON THE ECONOMY OF THE CUCKOO. 
a red or hepatic Cuckoo in England in April, is one which has 
completed on the Continent its nestling or first year’s plumage, 
but probably it was a reddish bird from the first, or it would not 
have been hepatic. 
Allied Species. 
The nearest allies to our British Cuckoo are the South African 
Cuculus gularis and C. poliocephalus, found in Asia and South 
Africa, and so little do they differ in colour of plumage that neither 
of them would he recognised if they came to this country ; the 
same may be said of C. intermedins , but Colonel Shelley thinks 
none in Africa but our bird have the true ‘Cuckoo’ note (B. M. 
Catalogue, vol. xix. p. 245). My father considered the yellow or 
yellowish base of the uppei mandible in C. gularis, the Lineated 
Cuckoo, the best criterion by which to distinguish it from C. canorus. 
Other more or less allied species may he seen in the Foreign Bird 
Gallery at Norwich Museum, and a well-mounted skeleton in the 
British Room there, hut we still want a group case showing the 
process of ejection, or the young Cuckoo being fed by the fosterer. 
