Cacomantis passerinus (Vahl).
The Indian Plaintive Cuckoo.

Polyphasia nigra (Bl), Jerd. B. Ind. i, p. 333. Ololygon passerinus (Vahl), Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 208

Miss Cockburn, the only person, so far as I know, who has secured the eggs of the Indian Plaintive Cuckoo, gives me the following note on the subject (she writes, I may add, from the Nilghiris)  : -

"I have long been unable to find the eggs of this bird, and thought it most likely that it did not breed on these hills. At last, on the 17th September, 1870, the nest of a Common Wren - Warbler (Prinia inomata) was found, which had two small eggs, and a third which was much larger, but of something the same colour. A few hours after another Common Wren - Warbler's nest was found, which also contained two small eggs (one of which was broken) and a large egg. These two nests were not far from each other; I took them both. On the 22nd September another nest of the same Warbler was found, which also contained a large egg and two small ones.

“The same day, one of my servants, seeing a Plaintive Cuckoo sit very quietly on a hedge, shot it. On examination it was found to contain an egg ready to be laid, of the same colour and spots as those found in the Common Wren - Warbler's nest! The egg was unfortuuatelybroken,butthe pieces were sufficient to identify those found in the little Warblers' nests. On the 26th September a Common Wren - Warbler's nest was found, which had only a Cuckoo's egg in it. The Cuckoo was seen near the nest, and the little Warblers in a great fright (for the appearance and flight of the Plaintive Cuckoo very much resembles that of a small Hawk); on looking into the nest, there was the egg. It was left for two or three days, but on going to the spot again the nest was found to be deserted, so the Cuckoo's egg was brought away.

"On the 5th October, 1870, another Common Wren - Warbler's nest was found, but this time it was occupied by a young Plaintive Cuckoo, which entirely filled the wee nest, and had the boldness to pick at my finger every time 1 tried to touch it. The nest had no young Wren - Warblers. Whether the young Cuckoo had pushed the little Warblers out, or whether no other egg except the Cuckoo's was hatched, it is impossible to say. 1 regret not having seen the nest till at this stage of the young Cuckoo's existence. A week after it had left the nest, but was caught among the bushes close by. Considering the smallness of a Common Wren - Warbler's nest, and one of the Warbler's eggs having been found broken in one of the nests, as mentioned above, there can, I think, be little doubt but that this bird, like its European namesake, must carry her egg in her mouth and drop it into the nest.

“The mouth of the Plaintive Cuckoo always struck me as being uncommonly large for the size of the bird. When opened it is of a beautiful orange colour."

Mr. Adam remarks  : -" Miss Cockburn's interesting note on the breeding of this species fully explains what I thought at the time to be a ease of fraud on the part of some of our native fellow - subjects. Towards the end of September 1866, when in Lucknow, 1 had small boys collecting nests for me, and on two occasions nests of Prinia inornata were brought to me containing an egg somewhat like that of P. Inornuta, but much larger, in fact exactly like that described and sent by Miss Cockburn. I accused the boys of having taken the eggs from some other nests, but they maintained that they had not done so. I did not believe them then, but I do now."

Mr. R. Thompson says  : -" In the Dehra Doon I have found the young one in a nest of the Pyctorhis sinensis. On another occasion I found a young one in the nest of Lanius enythrouotus. It is a common breeder in these parts, and breeds here in May and June."

Sometimes this species lays in the nest of Molpastes bengalensis as one was snared near Darjeeling on a nest of this Bulbul.

The eggs of this species (one of them, a broken one, taken from the oviduct of the female), which I owe to Miss Cockburn, of Kotagherry (Nilghiris), are elongated ovals, occasionally more or less cylindrical. The shell is very fine and smooth, and is fairly glossy. The ground - colour is a delicate pale, greenish blue, blotched and spotted boldly but sparsely, and almost exclusively towards the large end of the egg, with reddish or purplish brown and pale reddish purple. The markings seem generally to form a very imperfect and irregular, but still more or less conspicuous zone round the large end.

The eggs vary from 0.78 to 0.8.1 inch in length, and from 0.53 to 0.57 inch in width.