'^^ CUCKOO. Class II. 



cuckoos, we caught not fewer than five male birds 

 in one feafon. His note is fo uniform, that his 

 name in all languages feems to have been derived 

 from it; and in all other countries it is ufed in the 

 lame reproachful fenfe. 



The plain fong cuckoo grey, 



Whofe note full many a man doth mark. 



And dares not anfwer nay. 



Shakefpear* 



The reproach feems to arife from this bird mak- 

 ing ufe of the bed or neft of another to depofit its 

 eggs in 5 leaving the care of its young to a wrong 

 parent 5 but Juvenal with more juftice gives the 

 infamy to the bird in whofe neft the fuppofititious 

 eggs were layed, 



Tu tibi tunc curruca places *. 



A water-wagtail, a yellow hammer, or hedge- 

 fparrow f, is generally the nurfe of the young cuc- 

 koos; who, if they happen to be hatched at the 

 fame time with the genuine off-fpring, quickly 

 deftroy them, by overlaying them as their growth is 



* Sat, VI. 275. 

 X I have been eye-vvitnefs to two inltances : when a boy I 

 faw a young cuckoo taken out of the neft of a hedge fparrow : 

 and in 1773 took another out of that of a yellow hammer* 

 the old yellow hammer feemed as anxious about the lofs as 

 if It had been its proper offspring. 



foon 



