GENUS 20 CUCULUS CUCKOO.S



     SPECIES1. C UC UL US CSdROLINENSIS.

             YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO.

                [Plate XXVIII-Fig. 1.1

(uculus .inericanus, LINN. Syst. ed. 10, p. I l-CATEsB. I, 9.-
  LATH. i, 537.-Le Coucou de la Caroline. BRiss. iv, 112..-
  ./rct. Zool. 265, JXu. 155.-PEALE'S Museum, /VXo. 1778.

  A STRANGER who visits the United States for the purpose
of examining their natural productions, and passes through our
woods in the month of May or June, will sometimes hear, as
he traverses the borders of deep, retired, high timbered hol-
lows, an uncouth guttural sound or note, resembling the sylla-
bles kowe, kowe, kowe kowe kowe! beginning slowly, but end-
ing so rapidly, that the notes seem to run into each other, and
vice versa; he will hear this frequently without being able to
discover the bird or animal from which it proceeds, as it is
both shy and solitary, seeking always the thickest foliage for
concealment. This is the Yellow-billed Cuckoo, the subject of
the present account. From the imitative sound of its note, it is
known in many parts by the name of the Cow-bird; it is also
called in Virginia the Rain-Crow, being observed to be most
clamorous immediately before rain.
  This species arrives in Pennsylvania, from the south, about
the twenty-second of April, and spreads over the country as
far at least as lake Ontario; is numerous in the Chickasaw and
Chactaw nations; and also breeds in the upper parts of Georgia;
preferring in all these places the borders of solitary swamps,

  * This genus has been considerably restricted by recent ornithologists.
The two species referred by Wilson to their genus belong to the genus Coc-
cyctts of Vieillot, adopted by Temminck.