CUCKOO. 309 



of June, 1858, which was only accidentally killed 

 about the 28th of July, 1859, is given by Mr. 

 Gould (Birds of Great Britain) from the pen of 

 Mr. T. A. Briggs, of Plymouth ; and two instances are 

 recorded in the "Field" (July 5th, 1862), in which 

 one bird was kept alive over twelve months, aM another 

 from July to the following May. This species seems, 

 at times, particularly attracted towards kitchen-gar- 

 dens, to feed upon the caterpillars that infest the 

 gooseberry bushes.* In a large garden at Bramerton, 

 where these bushes cover a considerable extent of ground, 

 I have known a number of cuckoos to be flushed at one 

 time, as if collected from all parts to an unusual feast. 

 Mr. T. E. Gunn, of this city, recently showed me a piece of 

 cord, about three inches long, which he had found in the 

 stomach of a cuckoo, with the remains of caterpillars ; 

 accidentally swallowed, no doubt, though a particularly 

 unsatisfying and indigestible morsel. Messrs. Gurney 

 and Fisher have recorded the occurrence of a cuckoo, in 

 its first year's plumage, on the 5th of May, at Letton, 

 answering to the description of Temminck's Goucou-roux 

 the Cuculus hepaticus of authors ; and more recently a 

 second example has come under Mr. Gurney's notice, 

 but in this state of plumage the cuckoo is rarely 

 met with in this country, in spring, though in parts 

 of Germany it is said to be very common. Adult grey 

 birds (probably females) on their first arrival not 

 unfrequently exhibit one or more brown feathers in 

 the tail and wings. A curiously pied specimen, an 

 immature female, having both the under and upper 

 parts mottled with white, was shot at Beeston, near 

 Cromer, in August, 1862. 



* These are mostly the caterpillars of the large white cabbage 

 butterfly; they are also particularly partial to the hairy species. 

 The late Bishop Stanley, in his "Familiar History of Birds," 



