CLASS AVESI OKDER PICARI^B. 



129 



Fig. 216. 



Coccftgus americanus, 

 Yellow-billed Cuckoo. J. 



cup-shaped nests of vegetable down, with an outer coating of 

 lichens glued on with saliva. 

 Each contains two little white 

 eggs, the size of a pea. 



Cuculidse. The Cuckoos in- 

 habit all countries. Their toes 

 are in pairs, the exterior being 

 somewhat reversible, in one 

 species entirely so. The only 

 species found in England is 

 parasitical in its incubation, 

 like the American cow-bird. Its 

 young, however, hatches simul- 

 taneously with its nest-compan- 

 ions, whom it soon tosses out 

 upon the ground to perish. 



The Road Runner, a ground bird * found in southwestern 

 North America, is so swift of foot that for a quarter of a 



mile it will outrun a 

 fleet horse. 



The Yellow - billed 

 Cuckoo, with its near 

 relative, the Black-billed 

 (Coccygus erythroph- 

 thalmus), is found 

 throughout North 

 America. They are both 

 fond of hairy caterpil- 



Geococcyx calif or nianus, Road Runner. T \. j apg wn j c } 1 f ew birds 



will eat.f Unlike the European species, they build a nest, 

 though it is rude and airy. Laying their eggs, however, at 

 long intervals, they protract the breeding season from one to 

 four months; the same nest often containing a freshly-laid 



* It always carries the beetles and snails on which it feeds to a particular spot in 

 order to break the shell, and thus piles of the broken fragments collect at that place. 



t The cuckoo's gizzard is often found lined with caterpillar's hairs, so tenaciously 

 adhering by their minute barbs as to require microscopic examination to prove that 

 they do not grow from the coating of the stomach. 



Fig. 



