The Jack-Daw.] OF ORKNEY. 49 



frequent in Scotland that few farm-yards that have trees in 

 them, but they are the tenants of. Rooks are reckoned omi- 

 nous, if ever they appear here* ; and for the woodpeckers -f, 

 I do not think we have one of the genus. 



GENUS IF. THE CUCKOO. 



Gen. Char."' Bill weak, a little bending ; nostrils bounded by a small rim ; tongue 

 short, pointed; toes two forward, two backward ; tail cuneated, it consists of 

 ten soft feathers. 



Species 1. The Cuckoo. 



Wil. Orn. 97. Rail Syn. Av. 23. Cuculus Canorus, Lin. Sys. 168. Brit. 

 Zool. 182. Brit. Zool. Him. 53. tab. 55. Female. Sib. Scot. 15. Ore. 

 Gouk. 



THOUGH rarely, the Cuckoo is found in the retired and 

 wild hills of Hoy and Walls, where it finds a nurse for its off- 

 spring, which it seems either unwilling or incapable to care 

 for. The titlark, or other small bird, hatches for this species, 

 and we very seldom see a cuckoo on the wing in the breeding- 



* When a rook is seen, people expect a famine to follow soon after. 



f I shot in a garden in Stromness last year (winter, 1774), a lesser spotted wood- 

 pecker ; but this was only a strayed bird, none of the kind ever having been seen 

 here before. 



G 



