Abstract
ABSTRACT. Past studies of the replacement rules for flight feathers of cuckoos have been plagued by the erroneous assumption that the primaries constituted a single molt series. Instead, we show that the primaries of the Yellow-billed Cuckoo (Coccyzus americanus) are divided into three molt series and those of the Common Cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) into four series and, further, that Yellow-billed Cuckoos replace their rectrices in two molt series. Multiple molt series make it impossible to consistently describe primary replacement as a unique sequence of feather loss, as earlier researchers have attempted to do for cuckoos. We calculated the mean number of days (± SE) required to replace the primaries in each molt series. Primary replacement takes considerably less time in the larger Common Cuckoo than in the smaller Yellow-billed Cuckoo, mostly because Common Cuckoos replace four primaries at a time whereas Yellow-billed Cuckoos replace only three at a time. The primaries of Common Cuckoos cannot be better...
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