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The food of the Cuckoo.



[We hope that our members will follow up this suggestion.

The breeding of hybrids, systematically undertaken, would throw

a flood of light on the origin of species. Unfortunately at present

it is a practically unworked field, and we know but little of the

ancestry of even our commonest birds.—G.R.]



THE FOOD OF THE CUCKOO.


(1) By J. Weir.


I believe at a local museum here there is a singular error in

bird-lore. I noticed a young Cuckoo being fed by some small bird,

bringing it a nearly full-grown larva of the Fox Moth. I think it

would be difficult to obtain the larva fully fed during the time the

Cuckoo is in the nest. What bird would bring a hairy larva to feed

it ? The Cuckoo is said to feed considerably on hairy caterpillars,

but does its foster parent bring it such food ? Is it possible that

the smaller bird does it through sheer worry, exhaustion, and

desperation? I should like to go into the subject.


(2) By J. H. Gurney.*


“ The old Cuckoos have all left, but the young are now on

migration. To-day Mr. E. T. Roberts received a well-grown bird,

evidently a flier, and having the curiosity to examine its stomach,

found therein on dissection a dense mass of rather long hairs, which

had effectually insinuated themselves into the lining of the bird’s

gizzard. There were three good-sized caterpillars in its throat,

still undigested, and these resembled the larvae of the Tiger Moth or

Fox Moth, both of which are very hairy, and no doubt similar larvae

supplied the hairs in the gizzard. That somehow or other cater¬

pillars’ long hairs frequently find their way into the cuticle of the

gizzards of Cockoos has long been known, but it must be rare to find

so many as in the present case.”



Reprinted from the ‘ Zoologist.’



