THE CUCKOO. 25 



terminal black band, the feathers being irregularly barred with 

 blackish ; under surface of body buffy-white, barred with black, 

 the buff colour deeper on the throat. By some naturalists it is 

 supposed that this " hepatic " stage lasts throughout the bird's 

 life, but I have seen specimens moulting from it into the grey 

 plumage of the fully adult bird. 



Range in Great Britain. — A summer visitor, arriving in April, 

 somewhat irregularly in some years, when the seasons are back- 

 ward, and leaving about the end of July. The young birds, 

 however, are later in their departure, and are sometimes seen 

 as late as the middle of September. The males come a few 

 days before the females, and greatly out-number the latter. It 

 visits every portion of the British Islands, and even the out- 

 lying isles. 



Range outside the British Islands. — The Cuckoo has been known 

 to visit the Faeroe Islands, and is found nearly everywhere 

 throughout Europe and Northern Asia to Kamtchatka, but 

 it does not visit the tundras of Siberia, according to Mr. See- 

 bohm. In Norway it extends its range almost to the North 

 Cape, and in the valleys of the Petchora and the Ob it reaches 

 to 66^° N. lat., on the Yenesei to 67°, and in Eastern Siberia 

 it has been recorded from theStanovoi Mountains (62° N. lat.) 

 by Middendorf. It breeds throughout the Mediterranean coun- 

 tries, but is chiefly known as a migrant, and the same may be 

 said of it in India, as only a few breed in the Himalayas. I saw 

 it not uncommonly at Simla in the summer of 1885. 



The winter home of the Cuckoo extends throughout the 

 African continent, as it occurs at that season on the Gold 

 Coast, and it is also found in South Africa. Throughout the 

 whole of the Indian Peninsula it likewise extends in winter, 

 and even reaches Australia. 



Habits. — The natural economy of the Cuckoo is of such an 

 extraordinary nature, that a whole volume could easily be 

 written on the life-history of this curious and interesting bird. 

 The peculiar facts connected with its breeding are worthy of 

 a prolonged study, and there is doubtless much still to be 

 discovered respecting the behaviour of the bird during the 

 breeding-season. That there is a great predominance in the 

 number of males over that of the females which visit this 



