144 Pictures of Bird Life 



itself almost exclusively to laying in tlie nest of tlie 

 Magpie. The Aiiierieaii Cuckoo, liowever, builds a nest 

 and rears its own progeny like other birds. 



The sound of the well-known and familiar note of our 

 bird is always eagerly expected, as a welcome harbinger 

 of spring. It sometimes happens that numbers of Cuckoos 

 arrive sinniltaneously. as if they travelled in large flocks, 

 and that their mocking cry of " Cuckoo " is heard in all 

 directions, and the birds conspicuously seen in numbers about 

 the flelds and hedgerow trees, where the day before there 

 was not one to be heard or seen. 



The nests particularly favoured by them seem to be 

 those of the Hedge-sparrow, Meadow-pipit, Pied A^^agtail, 

 and Robin, and I lune seen the egg in nests of the A\^illow- 

 wren and Redstart. The latter nest was, as usual with 

 the Redstart, in a very small hole in a cherry-tree, into which 

 it was perfectly impossible for the Cuckoo herself to have 

 entered. In sucli cases it is supposed that the egg is deposited 

 on the ground and then placed in jiosition by the beak. 



Young Cuckoos are gifted with most inordinate and 

 insatiable appetites, and grow apace. To make room for 

 their unwieldy ])odies, they have a most objectionable habit 

 of ejecting the other and rightful occupants of the nest. The 

 illustration on p. 138 shows the details of one such tragedy, 

 in a more complete way than would be possible, as a rule. 

 Here, however, the accidental circumstance of a second old 

 nest immediately below having caught the ejected nestling 

 and an egg enables me to show a complete record. The 



