346 THE NUTHATCH AND THE CUCKOO. 



The female lays four or five eggs, oblong in shape, and of a 

 grey-yellowish colour. They are one inch and half a line in 

 length, by six lines in thickness. 



The Nuthatch (Not-Vacka, Sw. ; Sitta Europoea, Linn. ; 

 S. casia, Wolf & Meyer, fide Kjaerb.) was common with 

 us. as also throughout the more southern and central parts 

 of Scandinavia. But as yet its limits to the northward seem 

 not to be clearly ascertained. It remains in Sweden all the 

 year round. It is very common in Denmark. 



This bird breeds in the hollows of trees ; and M. von 

 Wright says : " If the entrance be too large, it stops up the 

 superfluous space with clay." 



Kjaerbolling makes mention of another species, the S. 

 Uralensis, Licht., which has been noticed near Copenhagen. 



The Common Cuckoo (Go A;, Sw. ; Cuculus canorus, L.). 

 This bird was very abundant with us in the summer time, 

 and the like is the case throughout the whole of Scandinavia, 

 from the extreme south of Sweden to near the North Cape. 

 It is found as well on the low-lands as on the f jails, as far 

 up at least as arboreal vegetation reaches. I myself met with 

 numbers of them on the Dovre-field, at an elevation of several 

 thousand feet above the level of the sea. It is abundant in 

 Denmark. Migrates. 



From the cuckoo common to Scandinavia varying a good 

 deal in plumage, many imagined there were different species ; 

 but it is now pretty -well understood that age and sex are 

 the sole causes of the great variation observable in their 

 appearance. 



Many idle stories used to be told of this bird, the greate 

 part of which are still believed in at the present day. 



" In the spring of the year," says Parson Odman, " peop? 



