CUCKOO NOTES. 147 



in any form of mystery, even if but the quasi- 

 mystery of a cuckoo's ways ! 



Indeed, the bird, its habits, its individuality 

 and eccentricity of nesting and of oviposition, 

 and its half-mystified expression of the eye, its 

 hesitating, skulking flight, and its evident 

 lapses into absent-mindedness, may well serve 

 to impress one's imagination, at least, with a 

 suggestion of a transition state through which 

 Cuckoo is passing to a lower or higher grade 

 of character. 



One day, as I was going down the Salliquoy, 

 a small tributary of the Coosawattee River, I 

 saw from my pirogue a cuckoo's, nest on a low 

 branch of a water-oak. The female was 

 crouching on the insecure looking pile of 

 sticks in utter terror, while a whole pack of 

 blue-jays were screeching and fluttering in the 

 foliage above it. I shall not soon forget the 

 expression of that bird's great solemn eyes. 

 Evidently the poor thing felt that a dreadful 

 fate was impending over it. But the fact was 

 that the blue-jays were worrying a little 

 screech-owl that had ventured into the day- 

 light, and which was now cowering in its 

 stolid way on another branch of the tree near 

 the nest. 



Our Cuckoo, though not notably combative, 

 will fight with great fury in defence of its 

 young, and the males engage in fierce silent 

 struggles for supremacy during the early part 

 of the mating season. 



The nesting area of the Yellow-bill extends 

 from Florida to Michigan, and from the Atlan- 

 tic coast to some line west of the Mississippi 

 River, and I am inclined to regard the black- 

 billed species as having nearly the same limits 



