328 



NATURAL HISTORY. 



when it flies quickly to the spot, seizes them, and returns to its perch, without spending much time 

 over the operation or climbing about after them. The bird is so constantly on the move that it 

 always manages to obtain sufficient food which is saying a great deal, for its stomach is large and its 

 powers of digestion almost unlimited. Thus it would be a most useful bird, did it not cause so much 

 damage while breeding." 



The Cuckoo resembles a Hawk so much in flight that even a practised eye sometimes fails to 

 distinguish it from a Kestrel at first sight. There is, however, a certain pointed look about the body 



GREAT SPOTTED CUCKOO. 



of the bird which distinguishes it from a Hawk; if near enough, the flat, obtiTse head of the latter 

 making the bird appear as if it had no head at all. 



Lastly, one word as to the winter home of the Cuckoo. It is always known in England as the 

 " harbinger of spring," and with the exception of the Swift, who very rarely makes a mistake in the 

 period of his advent, there is no bird whose arrival may be considered so certain a sign of that genial 

 season of the year. Just as the Swifts, however, sometimes come in for some cold weather, which 

 proves fatal to many of them, so the Cuckoos have been known to have been detained by cold 

 winds in. the south of England, where they have remained in flocks until the weather was more 

 seasonable and they could distribute themselves over the country. They are seldom heard of in the 

 height of summer; and, as the old rhyme says, " in June he changes his tune, in August go he must." 

 And it seems certain that this bird leaves England early in that month, but not entirely, as young 

 birds perhaps the later offspring are seen as late as September. The old ones arrive in Egypt on 

 their way south before the young birds, which are somewhat later ; and in Berkshire the writer shot 

 three young Cuckoos during the first week in August, a few yeai-s ago, out of a flock of birds on 

 migration, which, like himself, had apparently taken shelter under a wood from an approaching 

 thunderstorm. These specimens are now in the British Museum, and are of slightly different ages. 



