The Cuckoos. 117 



believe that individuals nesting later in the season are 

 more regular in depositing and incubating their eggs than 

 the owners of earlier establishments. My record of August 

 nests for 1893 shows more regularity in nidification than 

 is generally credited to these birds. Some observers re- 

 port that the females often lay their eggs while the nest is 

 unfinished, the male adding to the structure while the 

 female incubates — a fact observed in the domestic economy 

 of the ruby-throated humming-bird and certain other 

 species. 



In this locality the yellow-billed cuckoo nests in hedge- 

 rows of osage orange, and in groves, orchards, woods, and 

 thickets, and in the ornamental and shade trees of parks 

 and streets. Orchards, thickets, and shrubbery in swampy 

 tracts are selected by the black-billed species, it appearing 

 to nest in bushes and lower growth more frequently than 

 its yellow-billed relative. The species preponderating in 

 any locality appears to be more familiar in its habits, the 

 other retiring to the dense swamps, thickets, and woods to 

 rear its young. Hedgerows long untrimmed, sending out 

 large horizontal branches, furnish preferable sites; and 

 the structure is placed where intersecting twigs form a 

 firm support, at a distance of five to eight feet from the 

 ground. In trees the nests are placed higher, though 

 generally the site is on a horizontal branch, where diverg- 

 ing limbs give an assurance of safety. Nests placed in 

 bushes var}^ in situation from the top of the bush to a foot 

 ffom the ground. 



As a rule, the nest is a very shallow, flimsy aifair, and 

 resembles the hastily constructed nest of the mourning 

 dove, both in composition and construction. It is made of 

 coarse dead sticks and roots, laid loosely together, with a 

 very little dried grass, or several soft dried leaves, inter- 

 mixed in the middle for lining. There is wide variation 

 in the amount of material used in different nests, and per- 

 haps the greater number lack any lining whatever, being 

 so frail that the eggs can be seen from below. The black- 

 billed species appears to have a clearer idea of strength 

 and durability, judging from its work, than the yellow- 

 billed cuckoo. Occasional nests show considerable effort 

 on the part of the builders. One of the best specimens of 



