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bird, so perfectly easy and graceful, contribute to the agreeable 
impression which it makes upon the beholder. More frequently, 
however, is this mysterious visitor—as the bird has been called— 
heard than seen. Gliding about along the hedgerows, and by the 
skirts of leafy woods and copses, more often in shadow than in 
sunshine, it escapes the notice of any but a watchful and keen- 
sighted observer. Well might Wordsworth exclaim— 
*©Q Cuckoo! shall I call thee bird, 
Or but a wandering voice?” 
for the dreamy utterance of its cry, brokenly floating up from the 
wooded hollow near at hand, or coming from afar upon the summer 
air, sounds more like the voice of a spirit than of a bird. If we 
attempt to follow the sound to the spot from whence it emanates 
we shall probably hear it as though in mockery coming from some 
quite opposite direction. There seems to be hardly any part of 
the country which they do not visit ; for while some remain in the 
southern counties, others settle in the remotest islands of the north; 
and although they are met with in the most cultivated districts 
they also frequent the valleys of the wildest of our hilly and moun- 
tainous districts. I have heard them frequently in the wild hills 
and mountains of North Wales. We generally first hear them on 
Kingmoor, Todhills, and Wragmire mosses. The Cuckoo seems 
to be purely insectivorous, although some writers affirm that it 
sucks birds’ eggs. I have never seen it do so, therefore I can’t 
say; but I once watched one on Wragmire moss feeding for a 
length of time, and when I went to examine what it had been 
_ feeding on, I found the shattered cocoons of some insects. The 
_ stomach of the Cuckoo has often been observed to be densely 
coated internally with hairs, which the microscope proved to belong 
to the larva of the tiger moth (Arctia caja). We know it builds 
“no nest of its own, but drops its eggs in that of other birds, 
The Cuckoo seems, according to some observers, to lay more 
than one egg—some say five; and if so, must place them in 
_ different nests ; and to do this, it appears to use its bill when the 
nest is so placed that it cannot get at it otherwise. On one 
