Observations on the Cuckoo. 337 



over the one it had last fed, notwithstanding its clamorous 

 entreaties " [This remark of this author negatives our con- 

 jecture expressed in VIII. 296. — J. Z).], in order to give the 

 food to the other.* No importunities from the brown wrens 

 could obtain a morsel from it. There was sagacity even in 

 this ; for the brown wren is a much less nearly allied species, 

 and is now referred to a separate genus. Its own fellow- 

 nestlings did not importune it for food. It was a cock 

 bird ; and three weeks after it beat the cock wood wren so, 

 that it was necessary to separate them." 



Another very remarkable fact in the natural history of the 

 cuckoo is, that, unlike every other British bird, except the 

 swift, chimney swallow, and, perhaps, the night-jar, neither 

 the old nor the young birds undergo a moult before they 

 leave us in the autumn. I have a very fine young specimen, 

 which was shot in the month of September, but upon which 

 there is not the slightest indication of a change of feather. It 

 will be observed, that the plumage of the young cuckoo is 

 very firm and adult-looking in its texture ; and, as some of 

 the individuals which arrive in spring have traces of the 

 immature markings about the neck and throat, it has been 

 suggested that they do not moult at all the first season, but 

 undergo, like the ptarmigan, a gradual change of colour 

 during the winter. This, however, is not the case ; for, in- 

 dependent of observations made on them in a state of con- 

 finement, it appears that Montagu met with three specimens 

 in spring, which had then " not entirely thrown off their 

 nestling feathers," but in which " the thirteenth and three 

 succeeding quill feathers, and the three greater coverts im- 

 pending them," were unlike the rest, and " barred with brown 

 and ferruginous." These, no doubt, were very late individuals 

 of the preceding year; and, as all our common birds have 

 completely finished their change of plumage some time before 

 the winter sets in, and as those migratory species even which 

 moult again in spring (as the tree pipit and yellow field wagtail) 

 have generally quite finished their vernal moult before they 

 arrive, it seems almost to follow that the cuckoo's change of 

 plumage does not take place till after mid-winter; though, 

 probably, from its very great quantity of feather, its moult 

 occupies a longer period than that of most other birds. The 



* The contrary to this, however, is stated by Montagu, in his account 

 of the goldcrest. " There appeared to be no regularity in the supply given 

 by the parent bird ; sometimes the same was fed two or three times suc- 

 cessively ; and I generally observed that the strongest got most, being able 

 to reach farthest, the old one delivering it to the mouth nearest her," &c. 



Vol. VIII. —No. 50. a a 



