14 l^^fe History of Coiiiuioii Cuckoo. 



curious depression in the back behind the shoulders, 

 which disappears as the bird grows older. Its back, 

 in fact, forms nothing short of a kind of shovel, with 

 which to lift handily whatever it succeeds in once 

 getting under. Mr. J. H. Gurney well points out 

 that its stumps of wings are like arms with ill-formed 

 hands, which they really are. All this has of late 

 years been repeatedly observed, and this not by 

 solitary observers, but by whole parties. 



Mrs. Blackburn (the well - known bird observer 

 and artist) and her friends, had peculiarly favour- 

 able opportunities of observing the process by 

 which the young cuckoo threw the true birds 

 out of the nest. A cuckoo had intruded an e<?"" 

 into the nest of a meadow-pipit which was at the 

 foot of a low shrub on a gentle slope of turf. 

 The nest so rested on the turf amid shrubs that 

 only one side of the nest was really open for 

 anything to be ejected. Mrs. Blackburn's attention 

 was first called to the circumstance by seeing 

 young birds struggling on the sloping turf. Thinking 

 that they had been thrown out of the nest by some 

 accident, she went, took them up, and put them back 

 in the nest. I'hey were speedily thrown out again. 

 At last she contrived a means by which she could see 

 into the nest. The young cuckoo edged about in the 

 nest until he got his shoulder and wing under the 

 poor nestling, then edged up and up, standing upon 

 his sprawling long legs, his feet fixed in the sides of 

 the nest material until he was high enough, then he 

 elevated the shoulder furthest from the edge of the 

 nest, making, with the most wondrous, unerring pre- 

 cision, always to the open side of the nest, and then 



