Form. Medium sized or rather small for a bird of this genus; bill straight, hooked at the tip; upper mandible expanded on the forehead, its basal edge forming a crescent very distinct from the frontal feathers; tubular nostrils prominent; wing long; first quill longest; tail short, nearly square at the tip; tarsi short; feet large; tibia naked above the joint with the tarsus.
Dimensions. Total length of skin, 26 inches; wing, 19; tail, 5 inches.
Colors. Plumage at the base of the bill pale brownish-white, of which color there is also a spot behind and under the eye; entire other plumage above and below sooty brown, darkest on the back and wings, lighter on the under parts, and having a gray tinge on the breast; bill dark; tarsi and feet black.
Hab. Western Coast of North America. Spec. in Mus. Acad., Philada.
Obs. This species much resembles in colors and general appearance the Dusky Albatross (Diomedea fuliginosa, Gm., which is D. fusca, Aud.), but may at once be distinguished by the color of the feet, which in the present bird are black, and in the other yellow. In D. fuliginosa, the tail is much longer and wedge-shaped, and the upper mandible extends in a point into the plumage of the head in front, instead of being as above described in the species now before us.
It is a species apparently peculiar to the western coast of America; but as illustrative of the very extensive range of these birds, we may mention that several species, which are common on the Pacific coast of this continent, are also met with on the shores of Australia. The Great Wandering Albatross, the Dusky Albatross, and the Yellow-nosed Albatross (D. exulans fuliginosa and chlorhynchus), are given as birds of that continent in Mr. Gould’s magnificent work, “The Birds of Australia,” and are now well known to be inhabitants of the western shores of the continent of America.
Plate 36
The Ground Cuckoo
Geococcyx mexicanus (Gmelin)
GEOCOCCYX MEXICANUS.—(Gmelin.)
The Ground Cuckoo. The Prairie Cock. The Paisano. The Corre-camino.
PLATE XXXVI. Adult Male.
Of the many birds of Western America, the history of which has been brought to light by the recent researches of our countrymen and fellow-laborers in the great field of zoological science, that now before the reader is one of the most curious and interesting. Its existence has been known to naturalists since the time of Hernandez, who, as early as 1651, in his “New History of the Plants, Animals, and Minerals of Mexico,” gives a short account of it, as one of the most remarkable of the birds that came under his observation. Though partially known for so long a period, and having received various names from European naturalists, who have described specimens met with in museums, there was extant no satisfactory account of this bird previous to the incorporation of countries which it inhabits with the confederacy of the United States, and the consequent facilities afforded to the investigations of American naturalists.