202 The Naturalist in Siluria. 



which the cuckoo befools for her own purposes of pro- 

 creation, and certainly the species are many, but all more 

 or less insectivorous. Were it not so the young cuckoo 

 would have food given it on which it would poorly thrive, 

 or, rather, starve outright. Around my neighbourhood 

 the bird it chiefly selects to do its hatching is the grey 

 wagtail, and yet the latter is by no means plentiful there, 

 save in certain limited localities ; while we have the 

 cuckoo in remarkable abundance. Some way or other 

 these find enough wagtails' nests to serve their ends, 

 though for a pair of cuckoos it needs more than one. I 

 have note of four such nests around the same farmstead, 

 each with a cuckoo's egg in it, and certainly laid or 

 deposited there by the same bird. Although hatched and 

 nurtured separately, and by different foster-mothers, I 

 think there can be no doubt about the cuckoo producing 

 several young at or about the same time, and that when 

 fledged and able to fly the individuals of this odd family, 

 nursed apart, become united under the guardianship and 

 tuition of their parents, remaining so till the hour of 

 autumn emigration. Of this fact I had satisfactory 

 evidence in the after- summer of last year, by seeing six 

 cuckoos in a gang, four being young birds, as could be 

 told by their colour and markings, so different from the 

 old ones, the other two evidently their parents. And 

 several days they kept together about my grounds, 

 unmistakably in family association. 



