204 BIRDS. 



when fighting with another of its kind, for, like most 

 cowards, it is pugnacious on occasion. 



The food of the cuckoo consists almost entirely of insects, 



more especially in the caterj^illar stage, hairy caterpillars 



being preferred. It is also stated on good 



authority to be fond of sucking the eggs of 



thrushes and similar birds, but I have never got any 



evidence of this at first hand. 



Its habit of deputing to other birds the hatching of its 

 eggs and the rearing of its young has already received 

 mention. It only remains to add that the egg is first laid 

 on the ground, and then carried in the bill to some suitable 

 nest close by. I have seen it stated somewhere that the 

 mouth of the female is provided with a membraneous 

 pouch for the safer transport of the egg, but this would 

 appear to be superfluous, as the egg is so small and the 

 mouth so large. It is in these contrasts, as between the 

 disproportionate egg of the cuckoo and those, equally 

 disproportionate, of the apteryx and guillemot, that 

 nature's forethought is ever apparent. About an inch 

 or less in length, the egg is of varying pattern, and my 

 own collection included a series ranging through many 

 shades of grey and brown, always deeply spotted and 

 mottled. 



Much that is marvellous has been recorded of this bird, 

 which I have, for reasons that are obvious, omitted. A 

 Frenchman asserted that there was that in the bird's 

 breast-bone that precluded the possibility of her incubat- 

 ing her eggs ; but White proved the error, and more 

 recently the cuckoo has been reported as sitting on her 

 own eggs. A German declared that she possessed the 

 secret of colouring each coming egg to match that of the 

 intended foster-parent. This theory bears such a stamp 

 of reality as to invite no criticism. After all, we may 

 hear worse folly than that of the little girl who defined 

 the cuckoo as a bird that does not lay its own egg ! 



Great S2)otted Cuckoo. — A rare straggler from the South, 



