CUCKOOS FEEDING 99 



cuckoos arriving in this country somewhat earlier 

 than usual — in March, say, instead of April — and 

 these have been discredited on the ground that the 

 proper insects would not then be ready for the bird, 

 so that it would starve ; though as birds, like the 

 poor in a land of blessings, sometimes do starve, I 

 can hardly see the force of this argument. How- 

 ever, here is the cuckoo feeding — largely, as it seems 

 to me — upon worms, which are not insects, and this 

 might make it possible for it to arrive, sometimes, 

 at an earlier season, and yet find enough to eat. It 

 is easy to watch cuckoos feeding in this way in 

 open country, such as we have here, and a fasci- 

 nating sight it is. Were I to see it every day of 

 my life, I think I should be equally interested, each 

 time. But is it an adaptation to special surround- 

 ings, or the bird's ordinary way of getting its 

 dinner ? I think the latter, for I have seen it going 

 on in one of the plantations, here, from shortly after 

 daybreak. Here the birds flew from the lower 

 boughs of oaks and beeches, and their light forms, 

 crossing and recrossing one another in the soft, pure 

 air of the early morning, had a very charming effect. 

 Indeed, I do not know anything more delightful to 

 see. Though, usually, the cuckoo eats what it finds 

 where it finds it, yet, once in a while, it may carry it 

 to the bush, and dispose of it there. I have, also, seen 

 it fly up from the bush, and secure an insect in the 

 air, returning to it, then, like a gigantic fly-catcher. 

 Such ways in such a bird are very entertaining. 



My idea is that the cuckoo is in process of 

 becoming nocturnal — crepuscular it already is — 

 owing to the persecution which it suffers at the 



