68 BIRDS PERCHING BIRDS DIAGRAM 4 



OEDEE OF PEECHING BIEDS. 



PARROTS. All these birds come from distant countries ; but 

 their beautiful colour, their intelligence, and the ease with 



which they learn to speak have made 

 them valued among us. They fly 

 badly, and feed on corn, which they 

 break into small pieces with their 

 beak before swallowing it ; and on 

 fruit, which they take in their claw. 

 Their tongue is fleshy, instead of 



being hard and horny, as in other 



Head of Parrot. , . , 



birds. 



The cuckoo, The cuckoo migrates in winter, and only passes 

 the summer with us. It is found in woods, its back is ashy, 

 and its belly white, with fine black and grey streaks": its 

 plumage is something like that of the sparrow-hawk, but it is 

 easily distinguished from it by having its toes close together, 

 two beforo and two behind. The cuckoo eats a considerable 

 number of caterpillars, but it owes its celebrity chiefly to its 

 habit of making other birds hatch its eggs and rear its young. 



The female lays two eggs in the space of two or three days. 

 She lays them anywhere upon the ground. She then imme- 

 diately takes the egg in her beak, and puts it in the nest of 

 some other bird, generally choosing one smaller than herself. 

 But she does not abandon it, and if she sees that the bird 

 neglects her egg, she takes it away, and puts it into another 

 nest. When the young cuckoo is hatched among the family 

 where it has thus been placed, it begins to try and get rid of the 

 other young ones. By means of its rump and wings, it creeps 

 under them, lifts them on its back to the edge of the nest, and 

 throws them down, so that it alone remains to take the food 

 which the owners of the nest bring to it without seeming to 

 notice that their young ones are replaced by this stranger. This 

 has given rise to the expression, as ungrateful as a Cuckoo, 



