CUCKOOS. 
the external hind toe capable of being brought half- 
way forward. The tibia) are clothed with long feathers 
and tlie tail is rather long, always more or less wedge- 
shaped, and strongly fortified by coverts. The cha- 
racter of the plumage is firm and thickly set. The 
hues of the more typical species are in general rather 
sombre, but a few African species exhibit a brilliancy 
of colour rarely equalled in the feathered race. 
So faintly is the scansorial structure indicated in 
these birds, says Mr. Swainson, that but for their 
natural habits, joined to the position of their toes, we 
should not suspect they were so intimately connected 
with the more typical groups of the tribe as they un- 
doubtedly are. They neither use their bill for climb- 
ing, like the Parrots, nor for making holes in trees, 
like the AYoodpeckers ; neither can they mount the 
perpendicidar stems like the Certliiadce, or Creepers, 
and yet they decidedly climb, althougli in a manner 
peculiar to themselves. Having frequently seen dif- 
ferent species of the Brazilian Cuckoos (forming part 
of the genus Coccyzus) in their native forests, I may 
safely affirm that they climb in all other directions 
than that of the perpendicular. Their flight is so 
feeble, from the extreme shortness of their wings, that 
it is evidently performed with difficulty, and it is 
never exercised but to convey them from one tree to 
another, and their flights in the thickly-wooded tracts 
of tropical America are of course very short ; they 
alight upon the highest boughs, and immediatel}^ 
begin to explore the horizontal and slanting ramifi- 
cations Avith the greatest assiduity, threading the most 
tangled mazes, and leaving none unexamined. In 
