THE CUCKOO 



in a volume like the present. I have written much on 

 the Cuckoo, for its life-history has always had a special 

 interest for me, and I would refer readers to my several 

 books, where much of the^bird's economy 'has been dis- 

 cussed. The eggs of this species, I need scarcely repeat, 

 are laid in the nests of some small insect-feeding bird, 

 that acts the part of foster-parent, hatching them and 

 tending the young Cuckoo until it can forage for itself. 

 The eggs are laid during the latter half of May and the 

 beginning of June, the birds pairing in due course. It is 

 still an undecided question how many eggs each female 

 lays during the season, possibly from five to eight, each 

 being deposited on the ground first and then carried in 

 the mouth and placed in the selected nest. They vary a 

 good deal in colour, and are remarkably small for the size 

 of the parent. They often, but by no means invariably, 

 resemble those in the nest of the selected species. The 

 most frequent type is greyish or greenish white, spotted, 

 speckled, and blotched with various shades of reddish 

 and olive brown, intermingled with a few specks of dark 

 brown. The Cuckoo leaves us in August and September. 

 The adult Cuckoo has the general colour of the upper 

 parts slate-grey ; the wings are brown, barred on the 

 inner webs with white ; the tail is dull black, tipped with 

 white and obscurely barred with the same ; the throat and 

 breast are pale grey, the remainder of the under parts 

 greyish white barred with brown. Bill black, yellow at 

 the edges ; tarsi and toes yellow ; orbits and irides yellow. 

 Length 14 inches. The nestling has the upper parts 

 brown barred with rufous and spotted with white, the 

 under parts pale brown barred with darker brown. It is 

 nearly two years before the fully adult dress is assumed, 

 but a description of the intermediate phases, which are 

 very complicated, would require more space than can 

 be assigned here. 



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