230 
YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO. 
eggs of other birds, like the Crow, the Blue Jay, and other pil- 
lagers. They also occasionally eat various kinds of berries. 
But from the circumstance of destroying such numbers of very 
noxious larvae, they prove themselves the friends of the farmer, 
and are highly deserving of his protection. 
The Yellow-billed Cuckoo is thirteen inches long, and six- 
teen inches in extent; the whole upper parts are of a dark glos- 
sy drab, or what is usually called a Quaker colour, with green- 
ish silky reflections; from this must however be excepted, the 
inner vanes of the wings, which are bright reddish cinnamon; 
the tail is long, composed of ten feathers, the two middle ones 
being of the same colour as the back, the others which gradual- 
ly shorten to the exterior ones, are black, largely tipt with 
white; the two outer ones are scarcely half the length of the 
middle ones; the whole lower parts are pure white; the feath- 
ers covering the thighs being large like those of the Hawk tribe; 
the legs and feet are light blue, the toes placed two before, and 
two behind, as in the rest of the genus; the bill is long, a little 
bent, very broad at the base, dusky black above, and yellow 
below; the eye hazel, feathered close to the eyelid, which is 
yellow. The female difiers little from the male; the four mid- 
dle tail-feathers in her are of the same uniform drab; and the 
white, with which the others are tipt, not so pure as in the male. 
In examining this bird by dissection, the inner membrane of 
the gizzard, which in many other species is so hard and mus- 
cular, in this is extremely lax and soft, capable of great disten- 
sion; and, what is remarkable, is covered with a growth of fine 
down or hair, of a light fawn colour. It is difficult to ascertain 
the particular purpose which nature intends by this excrescence; 
perhaps it may serve to shield the tender parts from the irrita- 
ing effects produced by the hairs of certain caterpillars, some 
of which are said to be almost equal to the sting of a nettle. 
