294 lE'ftET X1.T*. 



and the country to which it jnigrates is yet nn- 

 known. 



The cuckoo appears to be a bird of the rapacious 

 kind : Reaumur, who brought up several, found them 

 to be carnivorous ; for flesh and insects constituted 

 their favorite aliment, and they would not feed cither 

 on bread er fruit. The voracity of the cuckoo is not. 

 indeed, to be wondered at, when we consider the ca- 

 paciousness of its stomach, which is -enormous, and 

 reaches from the breast bone to the vent. 



The female cuckoo makes no nest of her own, but 

 invading that of some other bird, very often of the 

 wagtail or the sparrow, destroys the eggs, and substi- 

 tutes her ov/n in the place. She seldom lays more 

 than one, which is speckled, and similar to that of 

 the blackbird in size. The bird, on its vetum, not 

 discovering the cheat, nurses the egg of her insi- 

 dious invader with the same assiduity as if it were 

 her own, and when the changeling is excluded from 

 the shell, continues to feed it with parental tender- 

 ness, ignorant that she is nursing an enemy to her 

 race, and a destroyer of her future progeny. 



When the young cuckoo is fledged, it quits its sup- 

 positious parent, and follows its native propensities. 

 What becomes of this tribe in the winter season is 

 wholly unknown. Some assert that it takes refuge in, 

 the clefts of rocks, hollow trees, and other similar re- 

 treats, where it remains in a torpid state until the re- 

 turn of spring. Willoughby relates a curious story 

 of some logs of willow being laid on the fire, when a, 

 cuckoo, being revived by the sensation of heat, began 

 to utter its notes, to the astonishment of all who were 

 present, A number of similar stones have been re- 

 lated, and as it is frequently the case, the same tale has 

 been often travestied, exaggerated, and multiplied 

 into a number, through the love of the marvellous, or 

 for the support of a favorite opinion. The most ge- 

 neral, hV)\vever, as well as the most probable supposi- 

 tion, is, that on the approach of winter, the cuckoo, 

 as well as the swallow, migrates to wanner climates. 



THE WOODPECKER 



exhibits the most irrefragable proof of an All-wise 



