196 
ANIS, ROAD-RUNNERS, AND CUCKOOS 
Nest. — A slight platform of sticks in trees. Eggs: 2 to 4, bluish green. 
Food. — Largely caterpillars, but also grasshoppers, potato bugs, and 
other insects. 
Though an eastern bird, the yellow-billed cuckoo is sometimes 
found in the cottonwoods bordering irrigation ditches in southern 
New Mexico. As it moves about in a treetop looking for caterpil¬ 
lars, it shows the large white thumb-marks of the under side of its 
tail, and as it flies down to a fence shows the striking reddish 
brown of its wings. As a family the cuckoos are little in evidence, 
being generally hidden in some thick leafy cover looking for cater¬ 
pillars. When they do fly their long slender bodies pass swiftly by 
in a straight line to disappear in other cover. 
Their presence would often be wholly unknown but for their 
notes, which, like the peacock’s, are considered a sign of rain — rain 
crows they are commonly called in consequence. They have a 
variety of notes, the commonest being, as Major Bendire gives it, 
noo-coo-coo-coo or cow-cow-cow. In the breeding season a number of 
males sometimes get together and give a veritable cuckoo concert. 
387a. C. a. occidentalis Rid gw. California Cuckoo. 
Adults. — Upper parts grayish brown, with faint green gloss; under 
parts white, grayish across chest; lower half of hill mainly yellow ; side of 
head with blackish streak ; tail graduated, middle feathers like back, 
tipped with black, the rest blue black, with broad white thumb marks on 
tips ; wing quills mainly rufous on inner webs. Young: like adults, but 
tail duller, without blue, and white not strikingly contrasted with brown. 
Length: 12.30-13.50, wing 5.50-6.00, tail 6.10-6.90, bill 1.02-1.08, depth 
of bill through base .37-40. 
Distribution. — Western temperate North America, breeding from south¬ 
ern British Columbia south to central Tamaulipas and northern Chi¬ 
huahua, Mexico ; from the Pacific east over the eastern slope of the Rocky 
Mountains and western Texas ; migrating to northern Lower California 
and tablelands of Mexico. 
Nest. — A loose platform of twigs, sometimes lined with leaves, dry 
grasses, and flower blossoms ; placed usually in willow or mesquite thick¬ 
ets, 10 to 15 feet from the ground. Eggs : generally 3 or 4, light greenish 
blue, unspotted. 
Food. — Caterpillars, black crickets, grasshoppers, and other insects. 
The California cuckoo is in all respects the western counterpart of 
the yellow-billed, from which it can be told only by size. 
388. Coccyzus erythrophthalmus {Wils.). Black-billed 
Cuckoo. 
Adults. — Upper parts grayish brown, faintly glossed with green, tail 
feathers narrowly tipped with dull white , preceded 
by blackish bar ; under parts grayish, fading to 
white on belly; bill blackish, naked eyelids 
bright red in life. Young: above dull brown, 
with coppery bronzy luster, becoming dull rusty 
Fig. 258. 
