BIRDS THAT ARE BOARDED OUT 49 



cuckoo in throwing his bed-fellows overboard, 

 that they exaggerated his misdeeds, and made 

 out that when he grew up he even went on 

 to kill the foster-parents who had so devotedly 

 reared him instead of their own children. 



The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long 

 That it had its head bit off by its young. 



It is quite likely, all the same, that the young 

 cuckoo does at times ill-treat the little birds 

 which have cared for it, for one kept in a cage 

 has been known to peck out the eye of a 

 thrush which had been kind enough to feed 

 it although also a young bird itself 

 just because the poor thrush ventured to 

 eat a worm given it, instead of handing it 

 over to the lazy bully it was silly enough 

 to fag for. And then the cuckoo, in its young 

 plumage especially, is so easily mistaken for 

 a hawk that people have often made the 

 opposite blunder of mistaking the hawk for 

 the cuckoo, and seeing it kill and eat a hedge- 

 sparrow or other little foster-parent of the 

 cuckoo, have put the crime down to the 

 cuckoo's account, as if he had not enough to 

 answer for already. 



This likeness of the cuckoo to a hawk, and 



7 



