CUCKOO. 



COG, OP THE ANCIENT BRITISH. 

 COMMON CUCKOO. GOWK. 



PLATE LVII. 



Cuculus canorus, LINN^US. MONTAGU. 



" hepaticus, LATHAM. 



" canorus rufus, GMELIN. LATHAM. 



THIS species deposits its parasitical eggs in the nest of some other 

 small bird, for which they are not too large, being singularly small in 

 proportion to its own size just one quarter what they should be in 

 proportion to those of small birds, than which they are themselves 

 four times larger. 



The eggs are not laid until the middle of May, and they require 

 about a fortnight's incubation. They are of a dusky grey colour, mottled 

 over with a darker shade. Montagu found one so late as the 26th. 

 of June; and Mr. Jesse records that a young Cuckoo, which had only 

 just left the nest of a Wagtail, was found in Hampton Court Park, on 

 the 18th. of August, 1832. The young birds are not able to fly in 

 less than five or six weeks. 



J. R. Wise, Esq., of Lincoln College, Oxford, has obligingly forwarded 

 me nineteen specimens of the eggs of the Cuckoo, from one of which 

 the figure is taken. 



