Mr. W. Thompson on the Birds of Ireland. 223 



so large as ordinary-sized peas. The stomach, with the exception 

 of the presence of some small sharp gravel, was entirely empty, and 

 was closely coated over with hair." 



" ' Attention was called to this, that the hair with which it is lined 

 might be observed. From its close adhesion to the inner surface of 

 this stomach, and from the regularity with which it is arranged, Mr. 

 Thompson was at first disposed to consider this hair as being of 

 spontaneous growth ; but part of the stomach having been subjected 

 to maceration in water, and afterwards viewed through a microscope 

 of high power, the hairs proved, to the entire satisfaction of Mr. 

 Owen and himself, to be altogether borrowed from the larvse of the 

 tiger-moth, Arctia Caja, Schrank, the only species found in the sto- 

 machs of several cuckoos * from different parts of the north of Ire- 

 land, which were examined by Mr. Thompson in the months of May 

 and June 1833.'" Proceedings Zool. Soc. 1834, p. 29. 



An observant friend states that he found the remains of coleopte- 

 rous insects in the stomach of a cuckoo examined by him, but 

 whether at a time when its favourite caterpillars are not to be pro- 

 cured, he could not remember. An intelligent bird-preserver has 

 remarked, that a kind of tough gelatinous fat is attached to the skin 

 of the neck in the cuckoo, such as he has not seen in any other bird. 



I have several times known young cuckoos to have been kept for 

 some months, and in good health, until winter set fairly in, when, with 

 two exceptions, they died. Of the survivors, one lived for more than 

 a year at Cranmore, near Belfast, the residence of that well-known 

 naturalist John Templeton, Esq. But it will suffice to give the par- 

 ticulars respecting another which was kept for a longer period at 

 the same place, and of which the following account, greatly exceed- 

 ing in interest any I have read, appears in the MS. journal of Mr. 

 Templeton : — 



"January 10, 1822. Last night the cuckoo which E. got from 

 Mr. Montgomery on the 26th of July, 1820, died, in consequence of 

 C. having hurt it with her foot on Tuesday last [8th]. Thus ended 

 the days of this innocent little bird, whose engaging manners were 

 the delight of the whole family and the admiration of strangers. It 

 was fed generally on hard boiled eggs, and occasionally with cater- 

 pillars : it would sometimes eat forty or fifty at a time of those of 

 the Papilio brassicce ; it however shewed a decided preference for 

 rough ones, as those of the Papilio tirticee. A seeming treat was a 

 little mouse about one quarter grown, which it would hold in its 

 bill and beat against the ground or anything hard until the animal 

 became soft, when it exhibited great powers of extending its throat 

 and swallowing. "What however was most extraordinary, it was 

 never known to take a drink ; though when presented with a drop 

 of water at the end of a finger or straw it would sip it, and seemed 

 to delight, when seated on its mistress's or other person's hand, to 

 jjut its bill to their mouths and sip saliva. It delighted very much 

 in heat, and sitting in the sunshine ; and as its feathers were so 



* The stomachs of ail tlicsc were coated with hair like the onericsurilK-d. 



