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168 BIRD GALLERY. 
No. 85. LITTLE GREBE or DABCHICK. 
(Podicipes fluviatilis.) 
A common resident throughout the British Islands wherever reedy 
streams, lakes, and ponds fringed with reeds are to be found. Small 
fish, insects, and vegetable matter form its principal food, but in 
winter marine animals are also eaten. The rather large nest of reeds 
and decaying weeds is anchored to some aquatic plant or shrub. 
The eggs, from four to six in number, are creamy-white when fresh, 
but soon become stained ; they are almost always covered over with 
weeds by the sitting bird before it leaves the nest. In winter the 
chestnut on the sides of the head and neck is replaced by rufous white, 
the crown is brown, and the underparts of the body much paler. 
Norfolk, May. 
Presented by Lord Walsingham. 
No. 86. CUCKOO. (Cuculus canorus.) 
This well-known visitor to the British Islands is generally distributed 
over Europe and Northern Asia during the summer months, arriving 
in the south of England about the first week in April and remaining till 
August or sometimes Jater. The food consists of insects and their 
larvee, especially hairy caterpillars. The parasitic habits of this bird are 
well known; it builds no nest, and the female Cuckoo Jays her egg on 
the ground, conveying it in her bill to the nest of the foster-parent. The 
Hedge-Sparrow, Wagtail, Meadow-Pipit, Sedge-Warbler, and Reed- 
Warbler are the hosts generally selected, but the nests of many other 
species are less frequently made use of. Soon after the young bird is 
hatched it ejects the other nestlings, and when two young cuckoos 
occupy the same nest the struggle for existence is sometimes severe. 
From four to eight eggs are laid in a season and the period of incuba- 
tion lasts for twelve or thirteen days. The eggs laid by different 
individuals vary greatly in colour, sometimes resembling those of the 
foster-parent ; pale blue eggs are occasionally found like those of the 
Hedge-Sparrow and Redstart, but are not invariably placed in nests of 
these birds. 
Norfolk, June. 
Presented by Lord Walsingham. 
