TANGLE-LEAF PAPERS. 49 



the most interesting habits of the English 

 cuckoo. 



I am aware that naturalists have stoutly 

 claimed that our yellow-bill never lays its eggs 

 in other birds' nests , but I have the evidence 

 of my own eyes to the contrary. I was plying 

 a country lad with questions touching the birds 

 and nests of his neighborhood, when he in- 

 formed me that a robin and a rain-crow had a 

 nest " in cahoot " * in an apple-tree just across 

 a lane from where we stood. Of course I was 

 anxious to see that nest at once. It was built 

 in the usual robin fashion, stacked up in a low 

 crotch of the tree, and contained three robin 

 eggs and one cuckoo egg. This was a num- 

 ber of years ago.; but so late as the spring of 

 1883 I found a cuckoo's egg in the nest of a 

 blue-jay. In the mountain region of North 

 Georgia, where the yellow-bill nests among the 

 haw thickets, I have seen it carrying its egg in 

 its mouth, no doubt with the purpose of deposit- 

 ing it in the care of some other bird. Wher- 

 ever I have gone I have heard this cuckoo 

 charged with eating the eggs of other birds ; 

 but I believe the charge has no better founda- 

 tion than the mistake of observers, who, seeing 

 it with its own egg in its mouth, naturally sup- 

 pose that it has been robbing some neighbor- 

 bird's nest. My opinion is, that by the time 

 our country shall have reached the age of the 

 England of to-day our cuckoos will have be- 

 come confirmed in all the habits of the Euro- 

 pean species. At best the bird is very indif- 

 ferent to nest-building, and its natural bent is 

 towards entirely evading the reponsibility. 



* " In cahoot " is a common Western and Southern 

 phrase for in partnership. 

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