Io6 CUCKOO. 



if a young Cuckoo has been forced on their care, feed it partially 

 with insects, though their own young would have been fed entirely 

 with the seeds and grain which is their own natural food. 



The egg of the Cuckoo is extremely small for so large a bird. 

 It is scarcely larger than that of the Lark or the Wagtail, and is not 

 therefore so much out of place in those small birds' nests. It is 

 now generally believed, after much discussion amongst Ornitholo- 

 gists, that the Cuckoo conveys her egg in her throat to the nest 

 into which she selects to place it. The Rev. Clement Ley has 

 " on four or five different occasions found the egg of the Cuckoo 

 in nests placed in the cavities of trees or banks, of which the 

 apertures were indisputably too small to allow the Cuckoo to do 

 more than insert her head and neck." Mr. Ley also inclines to the 

 belief that the colour of the egg will vary according to the nest in 

 which it is found, being more grey in the Wagtail's nest, more 

 green in the Hedge-sparrow's nest, and more brown in that of the 

 Titlark ; an approximation to the colour of the eggs of those 

 several birds, which may possibly be due to the instinctive 

 selection of the particular Cuckoo of the nest in which she 

 places it. The Rev. W. Baskerville Mynors has three Cuckoo's 

 eggs taken at Llanwarne, from a Greenfinch's, Hedge Sparrow's, 

 and Lark's nests, varying a little in size, but all somewhat resem- 

 bling House Sparrow's eggs. 



The nests of the Hedge-Sparrow, the Reed-Warbler, the Pied- 

 Wagtail, and the Meadow-Pipit are perhaps those most usually 

 selected. 



The food of the Cuckoo is made up of insects and caterpillars 

 generally, but, as soon as they appear, it consists almost entirely of 

 hairy caterpillars, such as few other birds will touch. These hairs 

 often accumulate in the stomach of the Cuckoo, in a spiral fashion, 

 leading superficial observers to think the stomach is lined with hair. 

 Cuckoos do not prey upon other birds, as has been stated, nor do 

 they suck eggs, a fable which may possibly have arisen from its 

 own broken egg being found in the throat of a Cuckoo just killed. 



