CUCULID^E — THE CUCKOOS. 481 



four eggs laid before incubation commenced, and all hatched before others 

 were deposited. Then the parents seemed to depend, in no small degree, 

 upon the warmth of the bodies of the older offspring to compensate to the 

 younger for their own neglect, as well as for the exposed and insufficient 

 warmth of the nest. I have repeatedly found in a nest three young and 

 two eggs, one of the latter nearly fresh, one with the embryo half developed, 

 while of the young birds one would be just out of the shell, one half fledged, 

 and one just ready to fly. My attention was first called to these peculiari- 

 ties of hatching as early as 1834, by finding, in Cambridge, in a nest with 

 three young birds, an egg which, instead of proving to be addled, as I antici- 

 pated, was perfectly fresh, and evidently just laid. Subsequent observations 

 in successive seasons led to the conviction that both this species and the 

 Black-billed Cuckoo share in these peculiarities, and that it is a general, but 

 not a universal practice. These facts were communicated to Mr. Audubon, 

 but not before his attention had been called to the same thing. 



In referring to these peculiarities of the American Cuckoo, Mr. Audubon 

 finds in tliem a closely connecting link with the European bird, and Mr. 

 Darwin, carrying still farther the same idea, finds in them also data for re- 

 garding our birds as only one remove from the vagaries of the European 

 Cuckoo. At the first glance there may seem to be some plausibility in these 

 deductions. The mere apology for a nest of our Cuckoos and their alterna- 

 tions of laying and hatching may, to some extent, be regarded as but one 

 remove from the total neglect of the European to build any nest, making, 

 instead, successive depositions in the nests of other birds. But there are 

 other peculiarities of our Cuckoos to be taken into consideration, totally 

 variant from the polygamous, unconjugal, and unparental European. Their 

 devotion to their mates and to their offspring, in which both sexes vie with 

 each other ; their extended breeding-season, varying from one to nearly four 

 months, — all these characteristics separate them by a long interval from 

 their namesakes of the Old World. 



If the nests of the Cuckoos are incomplete and insufficient, so are also 

 those of the most exemplary of parents, the whole tribe of Pigeons, and, 

 like the latter, our Cuckoos more tlian atone for such deficiencies by the de- 

 voted fidelity with which they adhere to their post of duty even in the face 

 of imminent dangers ; while, after the first offspring of the season have been 

 hatched, the warmth of their bodies becomes an additional protection from 

 the exposure of the bare platform on which they are deposited. 



The eggs of this species are of an oblong-oval shape, equally obtuse 

 at either end, and measure 1.30 inches in length by 1.00 in breadth. 

 They vary considerably in size, their minimum breadth being .90 of an 

 inch, and the length 1.20 inches. Their color is a uniform light bluish- 

 green, extremely fugitive, and fading even in the closed drawer of a 

 cabinet. 



VOL. II. 61 



