THE CUCKOOS 



(Family Cuculidae) 



BY A. A. ALLEN, PH.D. 



Assistant Professor of Ornithology, Cornell University 



TO ONE interested in the habits of birds, the rnem- 

 bers of the cuckoo family present some of the 

 strangest paradoxes of all nature. Constancy and 

 maternal devotion, symbolic of bird life, are replaced 

 by promiscuity and parasitism, and the privacy of nest 

 life, for which most birds risk the hardships and dangers 

 of long migrations, are forsaken for a communal habit. 

 The majority of Old World species build no nests of their 

 own but lay their eggs in the nests of other birds, where 

 they are hatched and the young brought up, by the foster 

 parent. Some 

 of the New 

 World species 

 called anis, 

 on the other 

 hand, build a 

 common nest 

 in which sev- 

 e r a 1 females 

 lay their eggs 

 and share the 

 duties of in- 

 cubation, while 

 a few cuckoos, 

 and among 

 them the com- 

 mon American 

 species, do not 

 depart widely 

 from the nor- 

 mal habits of 

 birds but build 

 i n d i v i d ual 

 nests and raise 

 their own 

 young. 



There are 

 about 190 spe- 

 cies in the 

 cuckoo family, 

 found all over 

 the world, al- 

 though most 

 abundant i n 

 the tropics. About thirty-five species are found in the 

 New World but only two of these, the black-billed and 

 the yellow-billed species, are common north of Mex- 

 ico. The road-runner, however, which is fairly common 

 in some parts of the arid Southwest, likewise belongs to 

 this family. The California cuckoo is but a large rep- 

 resentative of the yellow-billed species, and the man- 

 grove and Maynard's cuckoos, and the anis are tropical 

 species which only occasionally wander to our Gulf 

 coast. 



BREAKFAST IS ABOUT TO BE SERVED 



The cuckoos are extremely valuable birds because of their fondness for tent caterpillars and other 

 hairy larvae. Young cuckoos soon learn the reserved manners of the adults and even in the presence 

 of food do not forget themselves. 



In general, cuckoos are medium-sized, dull brown, 

 gray, or black birds but there are some exceptions to 

 this rule in the African golden cuckoos, and the violet 

 and emerald cuckoos which are beautifully iridescent. 

 Almost as strange as their parasitic habit is the simula-. 

 tion by many species of cuckoos, of the plumage of the 

 smaller hawks and of the birds which they parasitize. 

 Thus the common European cuckoo and the hawk cuck- 

 oos of Asia resemble so closely the common small spar- 

 row hawk as to alarm all small birds by their approach, 



and the dron- 

 go cuckoos of 

 India resem- 

 ble the drongo 

 shrikes which 

 they parasitize, 

 even to the ex- 

 tent of having 

 the outer tail 

 feathers curv- 

 ed o u t w ard, 

 both birds be- 

 ing uniformly 

 black. 



The cuckoos 

 are rather low 

 in the scale of 

 bird-life, lying 

 between the 

 parrots and 

 the kingfish- 

 ers. Even a 

 s u p e r f i cial 

 e x a m i nation 

 shows their 

 difference 

 from ordinary 

 perching birds, 

 b e c a u se, in- 

 stead of hav- 

 ing three toes 

 directly for- 

 ward and one 

 backward, 

 they have two forward and two backward as in the par- 

 rots and woodpeckers. This shows very well in one of 

 the accompanying photographs. 



Unlike young parrots, the cuckoos do not pass 

 through a downy stage but are almost naked when 

 hatched, being extremely ugly black-skinned little crea- 

 tures with a thin scattering of threadlike feathers. The 

 growing feathers remain in their sheaths until fully de- 

 veloped, so that, for a long time, their bodies seem en- 

 cased in tiny lead pencils. When the feathers are ma- 



