Birds of Celebes: Cuculidae. 
189 
Adult. Above slate-grej, paler on sides of face, throat and breast; wings shining 
dusky brown; tail black, browner on basal part; marked at intervals of about 1.5 cm 
with small white spots at the side of the shaft, growing larger towards the outer 
feathers where they are in displaced juxtaposition, tip of tail white; under surface 
of body buffy white, darkest on under tail-coverts, marked with transverse bars of 
blackish sepia (except on under tail- coverts which are transverse- spotted) of about 
2 mm breadth; quills below barred with white on basal two-thirds, the inner ones 
mil f orm white at the base (ad. Karkellang, Talaut, Autumn 1896; Nat. QoU. 0 15302). 
Young. Upper surface unevenly barred with rufous brown and black, the brown bars also 
well developed on the tail and as notches on either web of the quills above; below 
white, washed with cinnamon about the throat and chest, and barred all over with 
sepia (Karkellang, Sept. 1896, 0 15304). 
Second year. On moulting the rufous plumage, the bird assumes a dress resembling that of 
the adult, but browner and darker, all the feathers of the ujDper parts being edged 
with whitish (Talaut Is. C 15300, Autumn 1896; C 13080 and C 13787, Nov. 1894 
— three specimens in transition-jjlumage). 
Eggs. Elongated oval, a shade narrower at one end; ground-colour pure white, with a slight 
gloss, very sparsely marked, chiefly towards the larger end, with minute specks and 
tiny lines of dingy olive-brown and very pale inky purple or purj)lish grey. 22.6 X 
15.2 mm (Oates). 
j Bill from 
Measurements. 
Wing 
Tail 
Tarsus feathers 
! of forehd. 
a. (C 1857) Manado (March) 
201 
170 
20 1 — 
b. (0 1860) Manado (March) 
195 
165 
19 16 
In summer the Common Cuckoo, C. canoriis^ is spread from the British Islands . 
to East Siberia, China and Japan, Tarying so little that the majority of ornithologists 
speak of birds from the East, as from the West, simply as C. canorus. South-eastern 
examples, however, run a little smaller in size and are slightly different in the 
markings on the under surface. Hume seems to have first recognised the 
presence in India of two races of the Cuckoo in the small and large individuals 
which occur there in winter: speaking of a S23ecimen from the Andamans he 
says : it “is precisely similar to a great number of others that I have obtained 
in India, and which in common with most other Indian ornithologists I have 
always called canorus. These specimens differ only from others obtained in 
India, and from European ones, in their slightly smaller size, and possibly a 
shade slenderer bills” (b 6). The first specimen from Pegu, brought to notice 
by Hume (b5)^ was also undersized, and Oates finds likewise that birds of 
smaller size (wing 8 in.) than the European Cuckoo, but not otherwise differing, 
are the rule there (b 9). As in India, they appear, says Mr. Oates, to be 
merely winter visitors to Burmah, though a few may breed there. In China, 
as Swinhoe, David, and Styan rema.rk, the Cuckoo is a summer visitor, and 
it is most probable that birds from there, or from the territories rather 
further north, are those which pass into Burmah in winter. It should be noticed 
that neither David & Oustalet in Chinese specimens, Seebohm in Japan- 
ese ones, nor Shelley in those of either country, find differences between 
