THE CUCKOO. 



Ill 



given less scope to fabulous invention. The 

 note of the cuckoo is known to all the world; 

 the history and nature of the bird itself still 

 remains in great obscurity. That it devours 

 its parent, that it changes its nature with the 

 season, and becomes a sparrow-hawk, were 

 fables invented of this bird, and are now suf- 

 ficiently refuted. But where it resides in 

 winter, or how it provides for its supply dur- 



ever, to have escaped the notice of those to whom we 

 are most indebted for the agreeable information we al- 

 ready possess of the habits of the cuckoo, that the parent 

 bird, in depositing her egg, will sometimes undertake 

 the task of removing the eggs of those birds in whose 

 nest she is pleased to place her own.* I say sometimes, 

 because I am aware that it is not always the case ; and 

 indeed I have only one fact to bring forward in support 

 of the assertion ; it is, however, connected with another 

 relating to the cuckoo, not a little curious. The circum- 

 stance occurred at Arbury, in Warwickshire, the seat 

 of Francis Newdigate, Esq., and was witnessed by se- 

 veral persons residing in his house. The particulars 

 were written down at the time by a lady, who bestowed 

 much time in watching the young cuckoo, and I now 

 give them in her own words : "In the early part of 

 the summer of 1828, a cuckoo, having previously turned 

 out the eggs from a water- wagtail's nest, which was 

 built in a small hole in a garden-wall at Arbury, depo- 

 sited her own egg in their place. When the egg was 

 hatched, the young intruder was fed by the water-wag- 

 tails, till he became too bulky for his confined and nar- 

 row quarters, and in a fidgetty fit he fell to the ground. 

 In this predicament he was found by the gardener, who 

 picked him up, and put him into a wire-cage, which 

 was placed on the top of a wall, not far from the place 

 of its birth. Here it was expected that the wagtails 

 would have followed their supposititious offspring with 

 food, to support it in its imprisonment a mode of pro- 

 ceeding which would have had nothing very uncommon 

 to recommend it to notice. But the odd part of the 

 story is, that the bird which hatched the cuckoo never 

 came near it ; but her place was supplied by a hedge- 

 sparrow, who performed her part diligently and punc- 

 tually, by bringing food at very short intervals from 

 morning till evening, till its uncouth foster-child grew 

 large, and became full feathered, when it was suffered 

 to escape, and was seen no more: gone, perhaps, to the 

 country to which he migrates, to tell his kindred cuckoos 

 (if he was as ungrateful as he was ugly when I saw him 

 in the nest) what fools hedge-sparrows and water-wag- 

 tails are in England. It may possibly be suggested, 

 that a mistake has been made with regard to the sort of 

 bird which hatched the cuckoo, and that the same bird 

 which fed it, namely, the hedge-sparrow, f hatched the 

 egg. If this had been the case, there would have been 

 nothing extraordinary in the circumstance ; but the wag- 

 tail was too often seen on her nest, both before the egg 

 was hatched, and afterwards feeding the young bird, to 

 leave room for any scepticism on that point ; and the 

 sparrow was seen feeding it in the cage afterwards by 

 many members of the family daily." 



This account (the accuracy of which no one can doubt, 



* May she not do this in consequence of not being- able to 

 find a nest ht for her purpose, and therefore, from some extra- 

 ordinary and powerful instinct, she removes eggs which would 

 be hatched before her own, and the young birds from which 

 might become too strong- and heavy to be ejected from the nest 

 by the young cuckoo ? It requires all the exertions and ac- 

 tivity of a pair of water-wagtails or hedge-sparrows to provide 

 for a young cuckoo. If there were other birds in the nest, some 

 rents S } t! ^ rve ' ' lhe female cuckoo, by ejecting- the egg-s, pre- 



t H could not have been the hedge-sparrow, as those birds 

 are never known to build in a hole iu a wall. 



ing that season, still continues undiscovered. 

 This singular bird, which is somewhat less 

 than a pigeon, shaped like a magpie, and of 

 a grayish colour, is distinguished from all 

 other birds by its round prominent nostrils. 

 Having disappeared all the winter, it discovers 

 itself in our country early in the spring, by 

 its well-known call. Its note is heard earlier 

 or later, as the season seems to be more or less 



who is acquainted with the party from whom it comes) 

 seems to prove the assertion which some persons have 

 made, of cuckoos having introduced their eggs into the 

 nest of the wren, or into nests built in holes in the wall ; 

 or, as Dr Jenner asserts, in a wagtail's nest in a hole 

 under the eaves of a cottage. Some doubt has been 

 thrown on the accuracy of this statement of Dr Jenner's, 

 in a new and very agreeable edition of Colonel Monta- 

 gue's Ornithological Dictionary : at least, a hint is given 

 that it was rather a singular place for a wagtail to build 

 in. I have, however, found them in similar situations ; 

 and one wagtail built amongst the rough bricks which 

 formed some rock-work in my garden. If the fact, 

 therefore, is undoubted, that the egg of the cuckoo is 

 found in the nest of a bird built in so small a hole in a 

 wall that a young cuckoo could no longer remain in it, 

 by what means could she contrive to introduce her egg 

 into the nest ? It appears quite impossible that she 

 could have sat on the nest while she deposited her egg; 

 and it is not easy, therefore, to form a probable conjecture 

 how the operation was performed. Spurzheim, however, 

 asserts in his lectures, that he actually saw an instance 

 of a cuckoo having dropped her egg near a nest so placed 

 that she could not possibly gain admittance to it: and 

 that after removing the eggs which were already in the 

 nest, she took up her own egg in one of her feet, arid in 

 that way placed it in it. 



The following communication from a gentleman in 

 Sussex will throw some new and interesting light on the 

 natural history of the cuckoo. He says, that on firing 

 at a bird sitting on a fir tree in his garden, and which 

 he took for a hawk, it fell with a broken wing. On 

 picking it up, it proved to be a cuckoo, and being in 

 beautiful plumage, and very lively, he tied up the wing, 

 and sent it to a friend at Chichester, who being captiv- 

 ated by the bird's quiet demeanour, determined on try- 

 ing to keep it alive. On being put into a cage, the bird 

 soon fed, and appeared perfectly reconciled to its loss of 

 freedom. It eat fresh meat of any sort, cut small and 

 mixed with bread scalded and broken, and a raw egg. 

 On this diet the bird did well for three months. At 

 this time a lad brought some yellow-hammer's eggs, in- 

 tending them as a treat, one of which the bird unex- 

 pectedly seized, and attempted to swallow. It stuck, 

 however, in its throat, and killed it in a short time. 

 This would seem to prove that these birds feed some- 

 times on eggs. A cuckoo was kept at Goodwood-house 

 for nearly two years. The persons who had the care of 

 it never heard its natural note of "Cuckoo." It is not 

 unfrequent soon after the arrival of these birds, to see 

 four or five, or more of them in animated sportiveness 

 on the branches of an oak. If the spectator is attentive, 

 he will soon hear the notes repeated thus, Hoo-hoo 

 hoo- ~ 1 ^ ~\~ hooho-hoo which, proba- 

 bly, are ."_^_lj_F ~ notes of exultation from the 



favour- __i 1 0_L_^j_ ed suitor. When a cuc- 

 koo is I 1^ 1^ seen in a straight flight, it 



will often give utterance to a beautiful sound, more like 

 a delicate and lengthened shake on the flute than any- 

 thing else it can be compared to. As the bird is 

 always alone when this note is heard, we may con- 

 clude that it is a call for its mate. Jesse's Gleanings, 

 Vol I. 



