46 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS. 
XII. 
CUCKOO ; RAIN CROW. 
Un ess you follow the cuckoo to his haunts, 
you rarely see him. Now and then, perhaps, you 
catch a glimpse of his long brown body as he 
comes silently out of an orchard, an overgrown 
garden, or a clump of bushes, to disappear swiftly 
in a heavily leaved tree or mass of shrubbery 
where he suspects a fresh supply of insects. 
A third longer than the robin, the cuckoo is a 
slender, olive-brown bird with a light breast. The 
two species are very similar in appearance and 
habit, but in the yellow-billed there are distinet 
white spots known as “thumb marks” on the 
