376 COMMON CUCKOO. 



shoulders, which assists it in working itself under 

 the other young, and getting them on its shoul- 

 ders, so that by a jerk it can tumble them out. 

 In the American cow-pen bird, we have the want of 

 the instinctive inclination and the structure of the 

 shoulders compensated, by its eggs requiring less 

 time to hatch than those of the birds with which 

 they are deposited. 



During the short period of it's residence here, 

 the food of the Cuckoo is wholly insectivorous, 

 and consists in a great proportion of cater- 

 pillars, of which the muirs and pasture lands at 

 this season furnish a most abundant supply. We 

 are not sure of the range of the distribution of 

 the Common Cuckoo ; over Europe it is pretty 

 evenly spread, decreasing as we gain the north. 

 In its migration, it seems to pass to Northern 

 Africa, but whether the specimens from Southern 

 Africa are exactly identical, we have not now 

 the means of ascertaining. Vaillant considers 

 them identical, yet says that the African race 

 shews several distinctions ; the note of both is 

 similar, so much so, as to have nearly cost him 

 his life from the reflections and associations which 

 it recalled preventing him from seeing the ap- 

 proach of a beast of prey. Mr Swainson has 

 described a bird from Western Africa very closely 

 allied, which may also have been confounded 

 vith it. According to Temminck, specimens 

 from Egypt are exactly identical. The same 

 ornithologist records its presence on the Morea, 

 in Siberia, and Japan. 



