NARROW-BILLED BRONZE CUCKOO. 
The history of this species appears in Gould’s words as follows : “If the 
residents in the southern portion of Australia will examine the little Bronze 
Cuckoos which annually visit them in summer, thejr will find that they are of 
two distinct species. They bear a general resemblance ; but one will be found to 
have a stouter bill than the other, and a nearly uniformly coloured tail, the 
outer feather on each side only being barred. This bird may be observed in all 
the southern parts of Austraha from east to west, and I believe in Tasmania. 
The other species is about the same size, but has a narrower bill, a fighter 
brown head, a paler coloured back ; the outer feathers of the tail strongly 
barred, as in the last, and the basal portion of the next three feathers on each 
side rufous chestnut, which colour must, I presume, show very conspicuously 
when the bird is flying, or when sitting on a tree with its tail spread. I have 
specimens of this species from South Australia and Moreton Bay, and I believe 
I may state that it is the Common Bronze Cuckoo of Tasmania, but of this 
I am not certain ; the chances are that both it and the L. lucidus is found there. 
After a careful examination I have come to the conclusion that the stout-billed 
bird is the G. plagosus of Latham, and that the narrow-billed one is identical 
with the Javan speeies to which Horsfield gave the appellation of C. basalts. 
Having the type specimen of C. basalis. New Zealand skins to which the specific 
term lucidus was originally applied, and examples of C. plagosus, wherewith to 
compare it, I am the more certain of being correct in these conclusions. 
“ Having said thus much about these little parasitic Cuckoos, I leave to 
the rising ornithologists of Australia the task of investigating the subject, 
and of informing the scientific world whether there be an}?^ differences in the 
eggs of the two birds, and the character of the plumage of their nesthngs. If 
their first dress be not nearly uniform, and destitute of any bars on the throat 
and under-surface, then there is another species yet to be described.” 
Captain S. A. White’s notes read : “ N. basalis is a plentiful bird in South 
Austraha and is found all over the State, as we met all them all the way to the 
MacDonnell Ranges in 1913, and I saw them from Oodnadatta to the Musgrave 
Ranges in 1914, also along the Cooper’s Creek Expedition. They are early 
visitors to the Reedbeds, and in the year 1917 they were calling in their long- 
drawn mournful tone from the top of a dead tree in June. They invariably 
lay their eggs in the Malurus nests, and it is a very quaint sight to see a pair 
of Wrens feeding a fully fledged Cuckoo, the latter’s appetite being almost 
insatiable.” 
Mr. Edwin Ashby’s notes confirm the preceding : “ This bird is very 
numerous throughout the Adelaide Plains and the lower hills, and I met with 
it in quite as large numbers near Mt. Dandenong in Victoria. The shrill whistle, 
which consists of a long-drawn-out first note dying away with a downward 
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