Nostrils partly hidden; a large, oblong, bare space surrounding the eye; feathers of entire top of head and of chin and throat with hard, glossy scale-like tips; wings short and rounded; tail long and graduated.
353. LEPIDOGRAMMUS CUMINGI (Fraser).
SCALE-FEATHERED CUCKOO.
- Phœnicophaus cumingi Fraser, Proc. Zool. Soc. (1839), 112.
- Lepidogrammus cumingi Shelley, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. (1891), 19, 404; Sharpe, Hand-List (1900), 2, 172; McGregor and Worcester, Hand-List (1906), 64.
Al-bi-ló-ri-o, Manila.
Luzon (Cuming, Meyer, Everett, Möllendorff, Steere Exp., Whitehead, McGregor, Celestino); Marinduque (Steere Exp.).
“Adult (type of species).—Upper half and sides of the head gray, passing into white on the sides of the forehead and throat; all feathers of the forehead and a broad central band through the crown to the nape, ornamented with glossy, black, horny appendages, and having the subterminal portion of each feather white; a broad band of similarly horn-tipped feathers extending down the center of the throat; back of the neck deep chestnut; remainder of the upper parts deep glossy green, inclining to purplish blue on the quills and tail; the feathers of the latter with white ends; at the base of the neck a broad golden rufous semicircle bordering the white throat and blending into the deep chestnut of the sides of the neck and chest; abdomen, thighs, and under tail-coverts brownish black, washed with a dark green gloss on the outside of the thigh-coverts; under wing-coverts deep chestnut like the breast; quills uniform glossy black; eyelashes strong and black. ‘Orbital patch and iris red; bill horn-yellow; legs gray.’ (Everett.) Length, 432; culmen, 38; wing, 155; tail, 229; tarsus, 41.
“Nestling.—Upper half and sides of the head, wings, and body, both above and below, dark reddish brown; the quills and base of the tail glossy greenish black, with which color other portions of the wings are mottled; a broad white end to the tail; neck all round rufous, passing into rufous-gray on the chin.” (Shelley.)
A male from Bataan Province, Luzon, measures: Wing, 158; tail, 230; culmen from base, 37; bill from nostril, 27; tarsus, 41; middle toe with claw, 39.