GREY CUCKOO. 119 



The substances which I have usually found in the stomach 

 of the Cuckoo were insects of various kinds, hairy caterpillars, 

 and smooth larvae ; but I have also found in it vegetable mat- 

 ter. Thus, it is recorded in one of my note-books respecting 

 a male examined in June 1836, that the cuticular lining of the 

 stomach is " smooth, soft, in this instance without hairs, it 

 being filled with vegetable fibres and blades of grasses." I have 

 never met with a fragment of the elytra, the articulation of a 

 limb, or any other hard part of an insect in the intestines, the 

 contents of which are a uniform pulpy and impalpable mass of 

 a light red colour. Of course, the remains of insects in the 

 stomach must be thrown up in pellets, as in Hawks and Owls. 

 Hairs and other matters I have several times found in so great 

 a mass as to distend the stomach nearly to its greatest capacity. 

 It has been conjectured that the Cuckoo occasionally feeds on 

 eggs, especially those of the small birds in the nests of which 

 it deposits its own ; but I am not aware of its having been 

 caught in the act. It has also been accused of eating young 

 birds, but no one has found bones or feathers in its stomach. 



The Cuckoo is a very shy bird, so that one cannot follow its 

 motions ; but facts in its history and organization lead to infe- 

 rences, which may be correct, if carefully educed. Thus, it may 

 be heard cooing at most hours from sunset to dawn, and I have 

 listened to its notes at midnight, when they have a very singular 

 effect. This circumstance has been noticed by others as well as 

 myself. Thus, in the third volume of the Magazine of Natural 

 History, p. 466, ^Mr White makes the following statement : — 

 " During the summer of 1880, the days were wet and chilly, 

 and the nights clear and calm ; so that the night was, in fact, 

 more pleasant than the day : so much so, that I frequently 

 walked out after supper, and as frequently heard both tlio 

 Cuckoo and the Nightingale from ten till eleven o^clock ; but 

 on two succeeding evenings, the 4th and 5th of June, the moon 

 being about full, and shining with ' unclouded majesty,"' I 

 heard, about ' the witching hour of night,' both the Cuckoo 

 and the Nightingale ; and on the 9th, as I was returning fronj 

 a party of friends, with the fair partner of my pleasures and 

 pursuits, a little after midnight, wc were highly gratified in 



