502 
Mr. G. L. Bates on the 
and the under surface with faint whitish feather-tips, which 
tend to disappear in somewhat older birds. A nearly adult 
bird of this species with perfectly black tail was evidently 
the bird described by Sjostedt as C. aurivillii. No. 4091 
was moulting the tail, having five old and worn rectrices 
and five new ones, some not grown. The new ones have 
white tips, and spots or bars, as in the adult, the old ones 
have no white. 
In connection with the tail of specimen No. 4091 may 
be noted also the curious fact that the old feathers are much 
longer and more pointed than the new. The figure (text- 
fig. 13, p. 501) represents the middle pair of rectrices, one 
new, the other old, drawn to exact size. The shorter new 
feather seems to me fully grown ; but even if it were not, the 
difference in shape is remaikable, I have noticed in other 
Cuckoos and in many other widely different birds the fact 
that the rectrices are both longer and more pointed in the 
young than in the adult plumage. 
One more thing remains to be told about the youngest 
of these specimens of Cuculus gahonensis , No. 3898. It was 
brought in by a man who called it a young akdtoo (Laniarius 
leucorhynchus) ; he had shot it with his bow and arrow in 
company with its st parents.” I told him I wanted the 
parents, and soon a Laniarius leucorhynchus was brought; 
he said he had found it still crying for its child. The way 
in which this was told seemed to make it improbable that 
there was any deception. Moreover, the same kind of food 
was found in the stomach of the “ parent” Bush-Shrike as 
in that of the young Cuckoo. 
ChRYSOCOCCYX FL4VIGULARIS. 
Sharpe, Ibis, 1937, p. 437. 
No. 3263. $ (ova, oviduct enlarged). Assobam, Dec. 
1908. 
This is the second specimen, and the first female example, 
I have obtained of this rare Golden Cuckoo. When the 
first, a male, was shot by my boy at Bitie five years ago, 1 
was close by on a forest path, and heard the bird's loud 
clear call, resembling that of its congeners. 
