136 BY-WAYS AND BIRD-NOTES. 
danced their vigorous hoe-downs, jigs and 
jubah-shuffles. 
The hill country is, for the most part, very 
thinly settled, and many plantations once fer- 
tile and prosperous now lie waste, all over- 
grown with dew-berry vines and persimmon 
thickets. Everywhere, however, the birds find 
rich picking in the season of young leaves and 
larve, and all those perfumed and flowery 
groves are charming nesting-places. 
Rummaging among my ornithological notes, 
I find enough material touching the habits and 
haunts of our American cuckoos to make a lib- 
eral volume. Most of the memoranda refer 
to North Georgia, and, in fact, the yellow-billed 
cuckoo (Coccygus americanus) especially, is 
more numerous there than anywhere else that 
I know of. The habits of this bird as well as 
those of the three or four other species found 
in North America, are extremely interesting, 
disconnected from any mere scientific view, 
and the places these birds inhabit, and the 
season during which they may be studied, 
make the pursuit of knowledge touching them 
a most delightful affair indeed. 
The old nursery rhyme: 
“One flew east, one flew west, 
One flew to the Cuckoo’s nest,” 
should have read: 
“ One flew south to the cuckoo’s nest,” 
in order to conform to American facts; for it 
is below the Cumberland range of mountains 
that one may find the paradise of cuckoos. 
Of course even the yellow-bill comes far North 
and nests in our apple orchards, forewarning 
