CUCULUS MTCROPTERUS. 
•,229 
12 inches in length, which some unite with G-ould’s bird, discovered many years after in the Himalayas, but 
which others join with C. himalayanus of Vigors, a perfectly different bird, and not belonging to the termmal- 
bar-tailed group at all. It is scarcely possible to affirm what the Cur, ulus striatus of Drapiez rea y "as ; it was 
evidently an immature bird, as the outer primaries were indented with rufous ; the dimensions of the wing were 
unfortunately not stated: taking all things into consideration it appears to me to have belonged to the brown 
bar-tailed section and not to the ashy one, of which C. canorus is the type. C. himalayanus is a miniature ot 
this latter. Mr. Seebohm procured it on the Yenesay river; it migrates to China and Japan, and goes down 
to the Malay archipelago in winter ; but so does the present species. In the British Museum is a specimen 
from Sumatra labelled C. affinis, with the wing 8-2, bill to gape 1-1 (this is identical with a Ceylonese examp e), 
and another from the Himalayas labelled C. micropterus (this has, perhaps, the bars on the lower parts broader, 
and is slightly darker on the throat and chest than the Ceylon bird; the bill across the gape is 0- ( o inch, whde 
the latter measures 0-71). Mr. Oates measured a male shot in Pegu as, wing 8-2o . inches, bill from gape o , 
a female, wing 7-6, bill from gape 1-3. The bills are very large in these, and Mr. Hume considers 0. 
to refer to these large-billed birds. Perhaps there are two races of this Cuckoo in the Himalayas ; but we do 
not know whether Gould’s type had an exceedingly large bill or not. The Ceylonese birds which I have seen 
certainly are not so large in the bill as these latter specimens; but they evidently migrate from the Himalayas 
and they most decidedly are not C. himalayanus. What the C. affuns of Lord A. Hay was is not quite cleai. 
I cannot therefore apply his name to our bird, nor can I Drapiez’s, if his species is to be considered the same 
as Vigors’s (C. himalayanus, an altogether different type of bird), and therefore I must allow it to stand under 
Gould’s name as heretofore. 
Distribution. — This Cuckoo arrives in Ceylon during the month of October; but apparently its numbers 
are extremely limited, as but comparatively few examples have ever been recorded from the island. Kelaart 
sneaks of it as a mountain species of rare occurrence and found in Dimbulla ; Layard did not meet with it. 
Holdsworth writes that “the only two examples he met with were obtained m halt-cultivated land m low 
country near Colombo.” These were probably in migration to the lulls at the time they weie kil ed. 
have It it m the Kotto.e forest near Gallo, hod have seen it in the same drstnet on another occasion. 
T nffpets the subsidiary hills in the south-west of the island as much as any other pait of the low 
^ Prob^ly a ^. thaC °J oo y wlncli f did not pr0CU re, but which I identify as belonging to this species, 
in 'the forests between Anaradjlpura and Trincomalie ; and Captain Wade, of 
immature individual at Nalanda at the north base of the Kandyan ranges; m addition* > ,hich . havj ^ een 
it in the collection of Messrs. Whyte and Co., the specimen having been procured m Dumbara. It douitless 
■ ■ .ooi;+Tr tinn it annears to be but being a denizen of the forests, escapes nearlv a!, 
a commoner species m leality than it appeals to uc, ui , b 
observation during the period of its visit. .i tj- i 
There is, I think, no doubt that this species migrates to Ceylon via the south of India from the Himalayan 
region ; it is evidently very rare in the Peninsula. I notice that Messrs. Bourdillon and Pairbank to no 
record it in either of 'their lists from the southern hills; the latter notes it from Ahmednagar, but makes no 
comment as to its scarcity or otherwise. Jerdon found it rare on the Malabar coast and in the Carnatic, bu 
“ tolerably common in the jungles of Central India, as at Nagpore, Chanda, Mliow, and Saugor. 
Taking the large-billed race to be only a local variety of the species which visits Ceylon, we hn 
Mr Hume recording this Cuckoo as “common throughout Lower and Eastern Bengal, and even up into le 
lower valleys of the Himalayas, in Sikkim, Bliootan, and Assam.” In Pegu, according to Mr. Oates, it is 
numerous everywhere, but less so in the plains than in the hills. From Burmali it finds its way eastwards 
to China, where Swinboe found it on tlie Upper Yangtsze; southwards it migrates m the cool season through 
the Malaccan peninsula to the archipelago, whence it has been procured in Java and Sumatra, and probably 
will some day be obtained in Borneo, if it has not been already met with there. Lord Tweeddale refers with 
doubt four examples procured in the Andamans by Lieut. Ramsay to this species ; but the measurements of the 
wings, viz. 7‘0 and 7'37 inches, are almost too small for C. micropterus. 
1] a Jnts —The Indian Cuckoo frequents high jungle and forest, particularly that on the sides of hills. It 
• a ghv bird and keeps, as far as I have observed, to the tops of tall trees. It is very Hawk-like in flight, having 
Vh the anocarance of a small Accipitre as it wings its way from the summit of one lofty tree to another. 
Noticed it in the Kottowe forest fly out of the upper branches of an enormous Hora-tree, and after procee mg 
