THE CUCKOO. 91 



then take it in her bill and deposit it in a wagtail's nest 

 close at hand, where he immediately afterwards found it ; 

 and many other instances have been recorded. The egg 

 of the cuckoo is often extremely similar to the egg of the 

 bird whose nest she has chosen. Seebohm gives no less 

 than fifteen examples of the cuckoo's egg not one alike. 

 At a meeting of the Royal Society in 1884 a German 

 naturalist exhibited about thirty nests of different birds in 

 which the cuckoo had laid or deposited its egg, and in 

 many the cuckoo's egg was almost similar in colour to the 

 egg of the bird which had built the nest. The cuckoo's 

 egg has been recorded as found in the nests of no less 

 than ninety-three species of birds (thirty-seven in this 

 country) ; but the most usual nests are the hedge-sparrow's, 

 reed-warbler's, pied wagtail's, and meadow pipit's. 



We all know how the young cuckoo, by means of a 

 depression in its back, is able to hoist up and pitch his 

 foster brothers and sisters out of the nest, there to die of 

 cold and starvation. It is indeed a strange provision of 

 nature that, although the parents will feed and guard their 

 big foster-child with the greatest solicitude, they will take no 

 heed of their own callow young lying on the grass close by. 



The adult bird, as we see him, is very handsome the 

 dark bluish-grey head, back, and throat, the barred black 

 and white breast, under-parts, and tail, bright yellow eye, 

 and yellow legs. The young bird, which we see in July 

 and August, is quite different the head and neck a 

 brownish-grey, with a white spot at the back of the neck; 

 back, wings, and tail a clove-brown, the feathers tipped 

 with white ; breast and under-parts a dirty white, with 

 brown bars; eyes brown. There is no difference in the 

 plumage of the sexes. The female is somewhat smaller 

 than the male bird. 



Cuckoos do not pair. The old birds generally migrate 

 south in August ; the young birds later in September. 

 The various notices of the cuckoo being heard in this 

 country in December or early in the year are simply 

 caused by imitative boys ; in all these accounts the bird 

 is said to have been heard, but is never seen. 



