1889-90-] Stray Notes on the Birds of Anglesea. 363 



abound. Although hardly so plentiful as to justify comparison 

 with Milton's description of Satan's legions, who lay 



" Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks 

 In Vallombrosa " — 



yet their numbers were sufficiently great as almost to become 

 monotonous, the familiar call being audible everywhere, and 

 continuing practically all night, as well as during the hours of 

 sunshine. It would be superfluous to enter into any descrip- 

 tion of the curious habits of this species, — the parasitical tenden- 

 cies by which it shifts the burden of rearing its own young upon 

 its willing dupes, in the shape of titlarks, hedge-accentors, &c., 

 being now matter of notoriety to every school child.^ Long 

 ago many strange fictions were in vogue regarding its ways, 

 one of those being the conviction that it preyed solely upon 

 the eggs of other species, — a very silly notion indeed, and quite 

 untenable, as no attempt seems to have been made to indicate 

 the food upon which the bird subsisted for the several months 

 after other species had done laying. Another statement, com- 

 monly promulgated and credited, was that it hibernated in 

 Britain (a fable, it is regrettable to think, not yet exploded as 

 regards the swallow tribe), retiring into caverns, holes in the 

 ground, or the hollows of trees, there to lie dormant during 

 the long winter, until the advent of genial spring called it 

 forth once more. In illustration of this, a tale is told Ijy Aldro- 

 vandus, a very old ornithological writer, of a countryman 

 who lived at Zurich, in Switzerland, who, after casting a large 

 log of wood upon the fire, was surprised shortly to hear the 

 well-known call of the cuckoo issue from a cavity in the 

 wood, the presumption being that the heat had awakened "the 

 torpid inmate, and made him imagine summer had returned. 

 At night the cuckoo varies his usual repertoire- by another and 

 totally different call, which, however, having regard to the fail- 

 ure of the endeavour to portray that of the snipe, need not be 

 inflicted upon you. 



In addition to the birds already mentioned, a great variety 

 of common species could be seen more or less all over the 

 country — landrails, rooks, jackdaws, ring-doves, but, strangely 



^ Mr Harting, in his work 'Our Summer Migrants,' gives a list of over fifty 

 species in whose nests the cuckoo's egg has been discovered. 



