TANGLE-LEAF PAPERS. 49 



the most interesting habits of the English 

 cuckoo. 



I am aware that naturalists have stoutly 

 claimed that our yellow-bill never lays its eggs 

 in other birds nests , but I have the evidence 

 of my own eyes to the contrary. I was plying 

 a country lad with questions touching the birds 

 and nests of his neighborhood, when he in 

 formed me that a robin and a rain-crow had a 

 nest &quot; in cahoot &quot; * in an apple-tree just across 

 a lane from where we stood. Of course I was 

 anxious to see that nest at once. It was built 

 in the usual robin fashion, stacked up in a low 

 crotch of the tree, and contained three robin 

 eggs and one cuckoo egg. This was a num 

 ber of years ago.; but so late as the spring of 

 1883 I found a cuckoo s egg in the nest of a 

 blue-jay. In the mountain region of North 

 Georgia, where the yellow-bill nests among the 

 haw thickets, I have seen it carrying its egg in 

 its mouth, no doubt with the purpose of deposit 

 ing it in the care of some other bird. Wher 

 ever I have gone I have heard this cuckoo 

 charged with eating the eggs of other birds; 

 but I believe the charge has no better founda 

 tion than the mistake of observers, who, seeing 

 it with its own egg in its mouth, naturally sup 

 pose that it has been robbing some neighbor- 

 bird s nest. My opinion is, that by the time 

 our country shall have reached the age of the 

 England of to-day our cuckoos will have be 

 come confirmed in all the habits of the Euro 

 pean species. At best the bird is very indif 

 ferent to nest-building, and its natural bent is 

 towards entirely evading the reponsibility. 



* &quot; In cahoot &quot; is a common Western and Southern 

 phrase for in partnership. 

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