CUCKOOS 73 



Radius, and one often finds oneself looking at a bird 

 that one thinks is a hawk until it alights and suddenly 

 assumes a cuculine pose. The likeness is so striking 

 as to be a positive evil to ihem ; it renders them 

 liable to be mobbed and hunted by troops of small 

 birds, who pursue them, not from any disapproval of 

 their immoral designs on nests, but because they have 

 mistaken their nature, and (as Linnseus, according to 

 Gilbert White, did in respect to the common cuckoo) 

 regard them as birds of prey. When once they have 

 alighted no such mistake is possible, as they forthwith 

 sit down in a limply slouching attitude, with their 

 wings dropping forward so as to touch their perch, 

 and the tail slightly raised and expanded, altogether 

 presenting an aspect very unlike the compact and 

 alert look of a hawk. They have all the furtive, 

 peering ways of common cuckoos, constantly jerking 

 themselves from side to side as koils do, and at the 

 same time puffing out their throats frequently in a 

 strange way. Whilst at rest, almost the only hawk- 

 like habit that they show is that of very often 

 moving their tails about from side to side. They 

 rarely come to the ground, but now and then one of 

 them will venture to do so, and alights on a patch of 

 grass containing store of particularly alluring insects. 

 They are very wakeful birds ; on brightly moonlit 

 nights they are constantly to be heard from time to 

 time ; and, even when there is no moonshine, it is not 

 uncommon to hear them calling, their notes acquir- 



