Birds of Celebes: Cuculidae. 
187 
egg was creamy white, slightly spotted with pale yellow-brown and grey, forming 
a complete zone at the larger end: axis 0.9 inch, diam. 0.65” (11)- Major 
Ramsay appears, however, not to be in the right in holding the resident 
form to be a brown-backed species when adult, resembling the young Chinese 
birds; although Dr. Sharpe 1. c. does not mention whether Mr. Everett’s adult 
specimens had grey backs, it appears that they had, since there are such specimens 
from him, and other collectors in Borneo, in the British Museum (12)^ as shown 
in Shelley’s series. We do not of course venture to separate in any way 
this stationary form from H. hyperythrus^ without examining more material than 
the one or two specimens consulted by us, but desire to call attention to the 
fact that a certain Cuckoo visits Amooiiand, Japan and China in summer, passing 
over, but not remaining in the Lower Yangtse Basin in migration, as Mr. Sty an 
believes (13) — which may, or may not, be identical with one known to breed 
in Borneo. In any case a new and close comparison would be desirable, as 
the questions of migration and the differentiation of new forms are interestingly 
involved in such cases as this. 
Only two specimens of this species are as yet known to us from Celebes. 
The first was named as a new sj^ecies, C. asturinus^ by Briiggemann, but Prof. 
W. Blasius, after a careful examination of the type, came to the conclusion 
that it is identical with C. hyperythrus wadi fugax (see:' g 2), The second, is the 
female kindly lent to us by Mr. Nehrkorn and described above. It was shot 
at Rurukan (3000 ft.) in the Minahassa in January 1885 by Dr. Platen, and 
was most likely a migrant individual from Japan or China. 
GENUS CUCULUS L. 
In the true Cuckoos the bill is moderate, the nostrils round, in a slightly 
tubular formation of skin; the wing is long and pointed, the secondaries only 
about Y 2 the wing-length; the feathers of the rump and upper tail-coverts very 
thick, the latter about Vs the length of the tail; tail graduated; feet delicate, 
yellow in colour (except in C. pallidus (Lath.) and sonnerati Lath). Ten species 
are recognised by Shelley (1891), inhabiting Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia. 
61 . CUCULUS CANORUS (L.). 
Common Cuckoo. 
The races of the Common Cuckoo appear to be two or three in number, 
one of which, a somewhat small Eastern one, occurs in Celebes and other islands 
of the East Indies probably on migration. Two races of C. canoras are : 
^ 1. The typical Cuculus canorus. 
a. Cuculus canorus Linn., 8. K 1766, I, 168; Dresser, B. Europe V, 1878, 199, pL 299; 
Shelley, Cat. B. XIX, 1891, 245; etc. 
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