464 THE CUCKOO 



indeed, already have comprised those of other males beside the two 

 in question. Brehm noted a female cuckoo easily recognised by a 

 broken feather in her tail which visited the districts of no less than 

 five males. 1 How complicated the cuckoo territorial system may 

 become can easily be realised by imagining what is well within the 

 bounds of possibility the advent of a second female into the district 

 occupied by these five males. If it were divided between the two 

 hens, and their boundaries happened to traverse the estates of two or 

 more males, there might result not only polyandry but promiscuity. 

 All the evidence points, however, to an excess of males, and hence 

 to polyandry as the rule, the result being to substitute for the usual 

 system of one pair to each breeding-area a system of comparatively 

 small estates occupied by males, and of comparatively large estates 

 occupied by females. How far the boundaries of these two sets of 

 estates coincide or interlace is a matter that still requires investiga- 

 tion. 



Whether the male cuckoo has a love-display apart from that with 

 which he accompanies his familiar note is not recorded. His display, 

 when giving utterance to the latter, varies to all seeming according to 

 the intensity of his feelings at the time. In moments of high excite- 

 ment he raises and lowers his body, puffs out his feathers, fans his 

 tail, and turns himself about in the approved fashion of the domestic 

 pigeon. 2 He sometimes moves the body and tail from side to side, 

 frequently erects the latter to various heights, and also puff's out the 

 feathers of the throat. When in a milder mood, he is content, 

 according to my observation, merely to droop the wings, which he 

 almost invariably does when calling, the rest of the body being in its 

 normal position of repose, except for the customary raising and lower- 

 ing of the head at each " cuckoo," the latter uttered with the bill 

 closed, or almost so, as shown in Mr. Seaby's drawing. 



The "cuckoo" itself is usually to be heard from the middle of 

 April to the end of June, occasionally later. According to the 



1 Dresser, Birds of Europe, v. * British Birds, ii. 239 (T. T. Mackeith). 



