Fulton. — The Fi/jiir/iaroKroo, or Bronze Cuckoo. 401 



out cuckoos have been seen to feed young ones ; not only so, but different 

 species of birds have been seen to come to the same cuckoo and feed it one 

 after the other. " During the months of October and November it is no 

 uncommon sight to see the smaller Australian birds feeding the voung 

 cuckoos. Even the little Acanthizfe, which are seldom if ever the foster- 

 parents of the pallid cuckoo, join in supplying the wants, which are made 

 knowi^ by a peculiar peevish cry. It stops only while feeding is going on, 

 or when the appetite is fully appeased." So the New Zealand birds the 

 makomako, the tui, the warbler, the tomtit, robin, brown creeper, canary, 

 the wood-pigeon, and the white-eye are all known to feed the cuckoo bant- 

 lings, not because they ai'e purely duped, but very often from a true 

 philornithic spirit. It is fairly certain that in those cases where the warblers 

 have been seen to feed more than one cuckoo at a time the warbler was a 

 foster-feeder only, and not a foster-parent. 



" On February ihe 11th my son drew my attention to two young shining 

 cuckoos sitting on a branch of a nut-tree being fed by two wrens (probably 

 grey warblers). It was most interesting to see how assiduously they 

 searched for insects for them, and popped them into the big birds' mouths 

 almost quicker than your eye could take stock of the action. After about 

 an hour one Avren went away, and, so far as we can discover, never came 

 back again, the feeding then devolving on the other l)ird ; and as the day 

 wore on she was bullied most unmercifully by the two cuckoos, who kept 

 up a constant twittering, and chased her from tree to tree, pecking her if 

 she did not bring them food quick enough. She soon had a dishevelled 

 appearance from her exertions, and could be seen at odd moments trying 

 to preen into order her dishevelled feathers, when down would swoop one or 

 other of the cuckoos and peck at her till she hurriedly hopped or flittered 

 from twig to twig, and, returning with lightning-like quickness, popped a 

 minute insect into its open mouth. My family watched them being fed 

 thus by one wren all that and the next two davs, and they have been heard 

 but not observed closely to-day. I thought this case was worth recording, 

 as I was of opinion the cuckoo only laid one egg in each nest. It seems 

 almost an impossibility for two such large birds to hatch out of so small a 

 nest." No case has ever been recorded of two cuckoos of the same age 

 coming to maturity in an adopted home ; many cases, however, have been 

 known in which two cuckoos' eggs have been hatched, deposited certainly 

 by two different cuckoos. In such a case a continual struggle goes on for 

 the first few days, ceasing only when the stronger or more adroit succeeds in 

 hurling to destruction its companion. Similarly, when warblers with their 

 own chicks have been seen feeding young cuckoos, they are not the foster- 

 parents, but only foster-feeders. 



The young birds are singularly helpless or lazy, as the following instance 

 shows : " I first became acquainted with this bird in 1888. I was roaming 

 about in the bush, and heard it piping as in distress, and discovered him 

 being fed by little warblers. Later on I found some in a paddock of clover 

 infested with caterpillars ; the caterpillars were crawling over their feet, 

 and yet they cried to the small birds to feed them, and so save themselves 

 the labour." 



A number of other birds are imposed upon — fantails (26), robins, tom- 

 tits, blackbirds (28), and sparrows (29), as eggs have been found in their 

 nests. As is the case with cuckoos elsewhere, the egg varies considerably, 

 according to the host imposed upon. The commonly accepted description 

 of it is olive-green (29), but white eggs and blue eggs of a curious elongated 



