
WILTSHIRE MAGAZINE. 
‘“( MULTORUM MANIBUS GRANDE LEVATUR onus.” — Ovid. 


Peculiavities in the Pite-history of the Cuckoo, 
More especinlly with reference to the Colouring of its Eggs. 
By the Rev. A. C. Smiru. 
Read before the Society during the Annual Meeting at Salisbury, Sept. 14th, 1865. 

* And listen to the vagrant Cuckoo’s tale.” 
HAVE long had the intention to write some account of the 
Cuckoo, as I intimated in one of my former papers on the 
Ornithology of Wilts,’ because there is so much misconception 
abroad about the habits of that bird,? and because it is one of such 
extraordinary interest. It is even now a common popular belief, 
handed down from the time of Aristotle that the Cuckoo changes in 
the course of the summer into a Hawk: while Pliny,? who wrote on 
Natural History, gravely asserted (and that assertion is still upheld 
by many in these days,) that the young Cuckoo devours its foster 
brethren, and finally its most attentive foster parents: hence the 
Swedish proverb, “en otacksam gék,” ‘4 implying “an ungrateful 
fellow.” Even Linnzus gave credence to this absurd slander ; and 
een ee eg 1 ee ee 
1 Wiltshire Magazine vol. ix., page 57. 
2 Among other errors abroad with regard to this ill-used bird, the English 
translators of the Bible included it in the list of unclean birds, which the 
children of Israel were forbidden to eat. [Levit. xi. 16. Deut. xiv. 15.] But 
Bochart, Gesenius and others have long since proved that not the Cuckoo, but 
the Sea-gull was the species intended. [Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible. ] 
3 Pliny Hist. Nat. lib. 10 cap. 9. 
4 @¢k,” is no other than the old Saxon “‘geac,” and the Cuckoo is still often 
called ‘‘gowk,” in some parts of England. [Bosworth’s Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. ] 
"VOL. X.—NO. XXIX. H 
