•365 
THE YELLOW-BILLED AMERICAN CUCKOO. 
Coccyzus Americanus, Linn, (sp.) 
Cuculus „ „ 
— cinerosus, Temm.* 
Has twice been procured in Ireland. 
The first notice of the occurrence of this species in the British 
Islands, and indeed in the Eastern hemisphere, is due to Mr. R. 
Ball of Dublin, who contributed a note upon the subject to the 
first number of the Eield Naturalist’s Magazine. He states, that 
when at Youghal (co. Cork) in 1825, the butler of a neighbouring 
gentleman brought him a specimen of this bird a few minutes 
after its being shot, and when still warm and bleeding. In the 
same communication, dated from Dublin Castle, October 20th, 
1832, a second example is mentioned as having been recently killed 
near Bray, a few miles from Dublin. About the same period 
(“ autumn, 1832”) one was shot on the estate of Lord Cawdor, 
in Wales. Mr. Yarrell received a communication respecting the 
occurrence of another in Cornwall, but no date is given. (Br. 
Birds, vol. ii. p. 190.) These are, I believe, all the recorded in- 
stances of the species having been met with in the British Islands. 
Foreign ornithological works published down to 1845, do not 
contain any notice of its occurrence on the European continent. 
The specimen obtained near Bray was shown to me by Mr. 
Glennon, bird-preserver, Dublin, and I agree with Mr. Ball in 
considering it identical in species with his own. This was 
entrusted to me when about to visit London in the spring of 1835, 
and on comparing it with the specimen presented by Lord 
Cawdor to the British Museum, I found them to be of the same 
species. Before leaving home, I had purchased in Belfast a yellow- 
billed American cuckoo from a person who shot it at Long 
Island (United States), and at a meeting of the Zoological Society 
* See Temminck’s Manuel, part 3, p. 277, for remarks both on the generic and 
specific names. 
