B. VI.] THE HISTORY OF ANIMALS. 147 



cuckoo comes, and indeed very few hawks of any sort can be 

 8i>en during the period in which the cuckoo is singing except 

 tor a few days. The cuckoo is seen for a short time in the 

 summer, and disappears in winter. But the hawk has crooked 

 talons, which the cuckoo has not, nor does it resemble the 

 hawk in the form of its head, but in both these respects is 

 more like the pigeon than the hawk, which it resembles in 

 nothing but its colour ; the markings, however, upon the 

 hawk are like lines, while the cuckoo is spotted. 



2. Its size and manner of flight is like that of the smallest 

 kind of hawk, which generally disappears during the season 

 in which the cuckoo is seen. But they have both been seen 

 at the same time, and the cuckoo was being devoured by the 

 hawk, though this is never done by birds of the same kind. 

 They say that no one has ever seen the young of the cuckoo. 

 It does, however, lay eggs, but it makes no nest ; but some- 

 times it lays its eggs in the nests of small birds, and devours 

 their eggs, especially in the nests of the pigeon, when it has- 

 eaten their eggs. Sometimes it lays two, but usually only 

 one egg ; it lays also in the nest of the hypolais, 1 which 

 hatches and brings it up. At this season it is particularly 

 fat and sweet-fleshed ; the flesh also of young hawks is very 

 sweet and fat. There is also a kind of them which builds a 

 nest in precipitous cliff's. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



L. IN many birds the male alternates with the female in the- 

 duty of incubation, as we observed in speaking of pigeons, 

 and takes her place while she is obliged to procure food for 

 nerself. In geese the female alone sits upon the eggs, and 

 aaving once begun, she never leaves them during the whole- 

 process of incubation. The nests of all water birds are 

 situated in marshy and grassy places, by which means they 

 can keep quiet and still have food within their reach, so that 

 y do not starve all the while. The females alone, among 

 the crows, sit on the eggs, which they never leave ; but the 

 males bring them food and feed them. 



2. The females of the pigeons begin to sit at twilight, and 

 remain on the nest the whole night, till dawn ; and the male- 

 the rest of the time. Partridges make two nests of eggs* 

 1 Sylvia curucca, hedge sparrow. 



L 2 



