THE CUCKOOS 1767 



which it imposes on other birds in getting them to rear its young. There can scarcely 

 be any doubt that the number of males considerably exceeds that of the females, and 

 some naturalists not only speak of the species as polyandrous, but declare that the 

 female bird does all the courting. Certain it is that the presence of a female cuckoo 

 excites the interest of more than one male, as may be seen in springtime by those 

 who know how to detect what has been well described as the ' ' water-bubbling ' ' 

 note of the female cuckoo, which Brehm renders as kwik-wik-wik, and Seebohm as 

 kwow-ow-ow-ou 1 . The female, on giving utterance to this note, is answered at once 

 by every male in the neighborhood, and they lose no time in flying toward the tree 

 where she is seated, so that there are often quarrels and fierce fights among them. 

 It is during the love season that the double call cuc-cuc-koo is heard, as if the male 

 were trembling with passion. Although the general belief is that cuckoos do not 

 lay many eggs, it has been recently concluded that each hen deposits about twenty 

 in the course of the season. The variability in the coloration of the eggs is well 

 known, and it appears that in each individual the coloration of the eggs is heredi- 

 tary. That is to say that cuckoos brought up by meadow pipits always select that 

 species to be the foster parent of their own young in course of time, the same being 

 the case with regard to hedge sparrows, wagtails, and other ordinary victims of the 

 cuckoo. The small size of the egg, and the extraordinary similarity which it often 

 shows to the egg of the foster parent, render it difficult to distinguish the cuckoo's 

 egg from those of the rightful owner of the nest; and sometimes a cuckoo will lay a 

 blue egg exactly like that of the redstart or pied flycatcher, the nest of which it is about 

 to utilize. This is perhaps the most curious instance known of strict similarity in color, 

 the true cuckoo's egg looking merely like a somewhat larger egg of the redstart. 

 That such eggs are really those of cuckoos was, however, proved by Messrs. See- 

 bohm and Elwes, who were in Holland together when a redstart's nest was brought 

 to them, the eggs of which were hard set. On blowing them the young birds had 

 to be picked out, and the little cuckoo exhibited the characteristic zygodactyle foot 

 perfectly formed. In the case of eggs laid by the cuckoo in wagtail's nests and 

 those of other birds, the resemblance is exact, and when a cuckoo's egg is found in 

 a nest where the eggs of the foster parent are different, it is probable that the 

 cuckoo has not been able to find a nest, at the moment in which the eggs belong to 

 its own hereditary type. The nest of a sedge warbler has indeed been found with a 

 cuckoo's egg in it, which was the exact counterpart of those of the foster parent; 

 and a few days after, the finder, having noticed the female cuckoo to be hovering 

 about the neighborhood all the time, found a cuckoo's egg of the same sedge war- 

 bler type in a reed bunting's nest, where, of course, it looked thoroughly out of 

 place. From these facts it would appear that a cuckoo, laying a " sedge warbler" 

 egg. had been unable to find a second sedge warbler, and had been constrained to 

 put it into a reed bunting's nest. A series of nests of the meadow pipit, each with a 

 cuckoo's egg, has been recently presented to the British Museum, all of which were 

 taken near Portsmouth in 1893. There w T ould seem to have been three cuckoos who 

 visited these nests, since three of the nests contain a grayish type of egg, three an 

 egg of a lighter character, and three an egg of a purplish gray type. The story of 

 the way in which the young cuckoo ejects the young of its foster parent from their 



