_Coccyzus seniculus._
_Cuculus seniculus_, +Linn.+—Aud. pl. 169.
_Erythrophrys seniculis_, +Sw.+
[83] Length 12¹⁄₂ inches, expanse 15¹⁄₂, flexure 5, tail 6³⁄₄,
rictus 1⁴⁄₁₀. tarsus 1¹⁄₁₀, middle toe 1¹⁄₁₀, versatile toe ⁹⁄₁₀.
Intestine 10 inches; two cæca, 1¹⁄₄ inch long, about 1¹⁄₂ inch from
cloaca.
The tawny underparts, contrasted with the sober grey of the upper,
glossed like shot-silk, and the long tail beautifully barred with black
and white, render the subject before us one of the handsomest of this
genus of Cuckoos. It is a dull, and, so to speak, a stupid bird; we
not unfrequently see it suddenly fly out from the woods, and crossing
the road rest on a branch at a short distance, where it sits little
disturbed by the proximity of passengers: or jumps to another twig
near, and thence to another. I have never heard it utter a sound. It
lives on soft insects, large spiders, &c., which are stationary, and
which it seeks by thus peeping among the trees, and for the capture of
which long flights would be unnecessary.
I know nothing of its domestic economy; but in January I have found
eggs in the ovary, as large as dust-shot.
The shortness of the intestinal canal, and its freedom from
convolutions is remarkable, and struck me forcibly by comparison with
that of a White-winged Dove, which I happened to dissect on the same
day with this. The length of the intestine in the granivorous bird was
forty-one inches, that in the insectivorous, ten.