CLASS II. AVES: ORDER 3. SCANSORES. 



207 



dirty white, red spotted ; the flesh is tainted with a strong odor of castoreum, and is therefore 

 unfit for food. 



THE COLIIDJ^; OR COLIES. 



These birds are allied to the 3Iusopha[/idce ; their feathers are soft and silky, and their color 

 greenish-gray, whence they are called Mouse-Birds ; they belong to both Africa and Asia; they 

 are gregarious, live upon fruits and buds, and are the scourge of gardens. They walk badly, but 

 climb like parrots ; they sleep suspended from the branches of trees, with their heads downward • 

 the eggs are five to six ; the flesh is esteemed for the table. 



ORDER 3. SCANSORES. 



The principal character by which these birds are distinguished from the Passercs, consists in 

 the peculiar arrangement of the toes, of which two are always directed forward and two back- 

 ward. This enables them to climb trees with great facility, some of them, as the Parrots, by 

 grasping the smaller branches, and using the feet in the manner of hands, Avhile others, such as 

 the Woodpeckers and their allies, may rather be considered to run upon the surface of the 

 trunks and larger branches in every direction. Some live principally upon fruits and seeds, others 

 upon insects. In most cases, the wings are rather short, and the flight by no means vigorous. 

 The order includes four families — the Cuckoos, the Woodpeckers, the Parrots, and the Toucans. 



THE CUCULID^ OR CUCKOOS. 



The prominent genus of this family is CUCULUS : Cuculus, which includes the Common 

 Cuckoo of Europe, C. canorus, fourteen inches long, of a gray tint, the breast barred with brown- 

 ish-black; it is migratory, arriving in Europe in the spring, uttering very distinctly, and in a ten- 

 der and plaintive tone, the notes cuck-oo, cuck-on, very diflferent from the flat notes of kou-kou be- 

 longing to our cuckoo. It feeds principally on the large hairy caterpillars of the tiger-moths; it 

 also eats other insects, worms, &c. It builds no nest, but the female deposits her egg, stealthily, 

 in the nest of some other bird— a titlark, thrush, wagtail, robin, sky-lark, or bunting, and it is 

 hatched by the deceived and cheated proprietor with her own brood. The young cuckoo, when 

 he is partly grown, crowds himself under his young foster-brothers and sisters, lifts them up, and 

 tumbles them over the edge of the nest to the ground ; here they perish, while he gormandizes all 

 the food the parents can bring. This is not an occasional or accidental proceeding on the part of 

 the cuckoos ; it is instinctive, systematic, and universal. What a strange departure from the 

 ' nal course of nature ; fraud, cruelty, and ingratitude in the very cradle of a whole race of birds ! 



The Great Spotted Cuckoo, C. glandarius, is fifteen and a half inches long ; it belongs to 



