Cuckoo Characteristics 231 



time, and was perfectly satisfied it was a cuckoo ; I then 

 put my hand towards her, and she almost let me touch 

 her before she rose from the nest, which she appeared to 

 quit with great uneasiness, skimming over the ground 

 in a manner that a hen partridge does when disturbed 

 from a newly-hatched brood, and went only to a thicket 

 about forty or fifty yards from the nest, continuing there 

 as long as I remained to observe her. In the nest, which 

 was barely a hole scratched out of the coal-slack, in the 

 manner of a plover's nest, I observed three eggs, but did 

 not touch them." The narrator goes on to mention that 

 two young ones were hatched, which he and his friends 

 observed foi several days to be constantly fed by the 

 attentive parents, till they successively disappeared, 

 either by accident or by flying away. 



Naturalists of to-day regards such stories as myths, 

 and even in those days the night-jar was oft-times mis- 

 taken for the cuckoo. 



