GREY CUCKOO. 129 



female occasionally remained in the nest several minutes. Both 

 were exceedinglyshyand cunninof. So long as I was within sight 

 of them they would not feed the Cuckoo. I was therefore 

 obliged to conceal myself in a plantation with the branches of 

 the Scotch fir. When they brought food they always alighted 

 at the distance of about fifteen or twenty yards from their nest, 

 and stole softly amongst the grass at the bottom of the ditch, 

 and now and then stood still and looked around them with a 

 jealous glance to see if their motions were watched. So art- 

 fully was their retreat concealed, that no one to whom it was 

 not pointed out, would have had much chance of discovering it. 

 As it was at a distance from my residence, I found it inconve- 

 nient to watch the habits of this Cuckoo so frequently as I 

 wished. I therefore put it into the nest of a Titlark in my im- 

 mediate neighbourhood, in which were five young ones about 

 six days old, three of which I allowed to remain. I went next 

 day in the expectation of seeing the young Cuckoo lying dead. 

 To my astonishment, however, the female was covering it most 

 carefully, with outstretched wings, from a very heavy shower 

 of rain which was then falling. How she devoted her care to 

 this surreptitiously introduced stranger, while her own young 

 ones had in the meantime been expelled by the Cuckoo, and 

 were at that moment lying lifeless within two inches of her 

 nest, is a mystery in the economy of nature, which it would be 

 extremely difficult to solve. I do not recollect having seen it 

 mentioned in any book which I have perused, that the cry of 

 the Cuckoo when young resembles that of the titlark. This 

 perhaps was the reason why the foster parents were so sud- 

 denly reconciled to their newly adopted nestling. They fed it 

 most assiduously. On the afternoon of Thursday the 21st, it 

 pursued my fingers, when I teased it, nine or ten inches beyond 

 the nest, sparring with its wings, and crying like a hawk. As 

 has been noticed by Colonel Montagu, when about fourteen 

 days old, the restless disposition of these birds appears to cease, 

 for after that, this Cuckoo suffered young birds to remain un- 

 molested in the nest. 



" From a hut formed of heath, within sixteen feet of the 

 same nest, on Saturday the 30th of June, I made the follow- 



VOL, III. K 



