Black-billed Cuckoo [Yellow-billed Cuckoo]

Black-billed Cuckoo [Yellow-billed Cuckoo]
Coccyzus americanus Bonaparte [now Coccyzus americanus Linn.]
Folio edition, plate 2

“[These birds] resort to the deepest shades of the forests, and intimate their presence by the frequent repetition of their dull and unmusical notes. . . . These notes may be represented by the word cow, cow repeated eight or ten times with increasing rapidity. In fact, from the resemblance of its notes to that word, this Cuckoo is named Cow Bird in nearly every part of the Union. The Dutch farmers of Pennsylvania know it better by the name of Rain Crow, and in Louisiana the French settlers call it Coucou. It robs smaller birds of their eggs, which it sucks on all occasions, and is cowardly and shy, without being vigilant. On this latter account, it often falls a prey to several species of Hawks. . . .”

This bird is actually a Yellow-billed Cuckoo. Audubon depicted the Black-billed Cuckoo in plate 32.

John James Audubon, Ornithological Biography, or An Account of the Habits of the Birds of the United States of America (Edinburgh: A. Black [et al.], 1831), vol. 1, p. 18-19.

View bird in National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds.