KOEL. 
Distribution : Victoria ; New South Wales ; Queensland ; Northern Territory ; North- 
west Australia. 
Adult male. General colour both above and below glossy blue-black ; under-surface of quiUs 
blacldsh-brown. Eyes red. Feet and tarsus leaden-blue with a tinge of olive. Bill 
ohve-grey with the base of the culmen and nostrils blackish-brown. Total length 
452 mm. ; culmen 25, wing 214, tail 210, tarsus 34. Figured. Collected on Parry’s 
Creek, North-west Australia, on the 20th of October, 1908. 
Adult female. Crown of head, upper hind-neck, and upper portion of ear-coverts glossy 
blue-black ; lower hind-neck and mantle similar but rather paler and the feathers 
marked with white ; entire back, wings and tail bronze-brown spotted or barred 
with white — the white markings take all kinds of peculiar forms, sometimes spots of 
varying shapes which occur on the margins of the feathers, while others are close to 
the shafts, the markings on the flight-quills sometimes form oblique bars, at others 
more or less curved, those on the tail-feathers are similar in shape and terminate with 
white tips ; chin and throat blue-black with white tips to the feathers on the middle 
portion, the lateral portion uniform and extending towards the sides of the neck ; a 
line running from the lores to the sides of the neck ochraceous like the fore-neck, 
breast, abdomen, sides of body, under tail-coverts, axillaries and under wing-coverts 
narrowly barred with dark brown on all, except the hne on the cheeks ; abdomen 
and under tail-coverts less ochraceous and inclining to white ; under-surface of 
quills pale brown marked with white, more profusely at the base, and becoming 
obsolete on the terminal portion ; lower aspect of tail greenish-brown profusely 
barred with white. Wing 206 mm. Figured. Collected on Parry’s Creek, North- 
west Australia, on the 23rd of November, 1908. 
Nestling. Head buff, rest of upper-surface and vdngs buff with narrow dark-brown bars. 
Under-surface white with brown bars. 
As the bird gets bigger a black stripe appears below and beliind the eye ; a blackish 
patch on the crowm of the head and another between the wings. In the next stage 
the black on the upper surface has increased and covers the head, back, rump and 
upper wing-coverts. The throat also shows the black. 
Egg. Ground-colour pinkish. Sparingly spotted with irregular markings, thickest about 
the larger end, of reddish-purple and lavender. 34 mm. by 23-25. 
Breeding-season. October to January or February. 
In their exposition of the Australian Birds in the Museum of the Linnean 
Society, Vigors and Horsfield introduced many new genera and amongst them 
Eudynamys for Cuculus orientalis of Linne, to which they referred specimens 
from Australia, writing : “ These birds, which now generally are considered the 
sexes of one species, appear to be but accidental visitors in the colony. At least 
Mr. Calev informs us that he never met with more than two individuals of the 
male and one of the female. The male specimen in the Society’s collection 
seems to be a young bird changing to the adult plumage. It has several pale 
ferruginous feathers on the lower parts of the bodj^, and it has a single ferruginous 
feather streaked with black among the secondarj?" quill-feathers of the right wing, 
which forms a striking contrast with the deep black of the rest. The corre- 
sponding feather on the left wing was lost, as Mr. Caley tells us, by the shot 
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