220 
Birds of Celebes: Cuculidae. 
of tlie whoot but wait for the kurook. It feeds almost entirely upon grass- 
hoppers and frequents the open, scrubby tracts only. I have never once seen 
it in larger forest”. 
In South Celebes in the month of February Dr. Platen found it a quiet 
and rather shy bird, appearing and disappearing in a mysterious manner before 
the traveller, as he moved through a hot treeless grass-plain, where the growth 
is taller than a man. “It flies, on being disturbed or when danger threatens, 
quickly downwards, then horizontally for a distance, to raise itself as quickly 
again and cling to another grass-stem, where it looks out for its prey. This 
species, too, feeds, like our German Cuckoo, without damage to its health, on 
hairy caterpillars; for on every dissection the walls of the stomach were found 
covered with brown-black caterpillar hairs. The bird presents the peculiarity 
that the male is much smaller than the female” ( p 8). 
Two remarkable discoveries in connection with this species were made and 
fully described by Bernstein (c 2. c 3, c 4)^ namely, the male is always to be 
found hatching the eggs by day (what share, if any, the female took in the 
work he could not ascertain), and it possesses only the right testicle, the left 
one being entirely wanting. It should further be borne in mind that the male 
is the smaller, weaker bird, and that, as Mr. Gammie’s observations tend to 
show, it apparently leaves the female to do the “singing”. 
The yonng of this species, and we believe of all Centrococcpges^ in its first 
plumage is wonderfully like the adult female of Eudpiamis melanorhyncha^ 
though it may, of course, be at once distinguished by its nostrils, which are 
feathered above, by its long Lark-like hind claw, and by the peculiar spinous 
character of the feathers of its head, neck and body. 
This similarity is not kept up between the adults of C. hengalensis and the 
adult male of E. melanorhyncha^ though both may be said to have developed 
in a melanistic direction^), the latter being entirely black, and C. hengalensis 
and its relations black with rufous wings and back. What is unusual about 
the case is that the young Centrococcyoc resembles the adult female of Eudynamis 
melanorhyncha and not the young of that species, which is black, but Mr. White- 
head gives reasons [antea p. 209), why the plumage of the young Eudynamis (E. 
mindanensis) may have been specially modified to make it resemble the black 
young ones of its foster-parents. Centrococcycc^ not being a parasitical Cuckoo, 
has no need of such an alteration in its young. This type of plumage is shared 
by the young of some other Cuculinae, such as Cuculus^ Cacomantis^ ELierococcyoc, 
Urodynamis^ and it may have a deep phylogenetic significance. 
The long Lark-like hind claw of Centropus suggests at once that it is a 
terrestial bird; and, if we mistake not, the high course grasses in which it lives 
1) It is wortliy of note that Ceyitropus appeal’s to have strong tendencies towards albinism. The Dresden 
Museum contains two perfect albinos of C. viridis, one perfect albino each of C. ateralhus, and C. goliath, one 
partial albino of C. hengalensis, and several such of C. ateralbus. 
