CHAPTER XIX. 



THE UNITED STATES CUCKOOS. 



(Family Cuculidce). 



UCKOOS of one kind or another are found in nearly all 

 parts of the world, and, taken as a group, it is one that 

 possesses especial interest for the ornithologist. It 

 is but a fairly well circumscribed family, containing 

 as it does at least a few somewhat aberrant forms. Within the 

 family, cuckoos very widely differ, not only in structure and gen- 

 eral appearance, but in their habits of life, nidification, and affini- 

 ties. If what we know of them were collected together it would 

 make a very large volume indeed ; but if on the other hand, could 

 be printed what we do not know about them, quite a good 

 sized library would be the result. Even in the case of the one 

 species, the well-known Old World Cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) the 

 learned British ornithologist Newton has said : " No single bird 

 has perhaps so much occupied the attention both of naturalists 

 and of those who are not naturalists, or has had so much written 

 about it, as this, and of no bird perhaps have more idle tales been 

 told. Its strange and, according to the experience of most peo- 

 ple, its singular habit of entrusting its offspring to foster-parents 

 is enough to account for much of the interest which has been so 

 long felt in its history ; but this habit is shared probably by many 

 of its Old World relatives, as well as in the New World by birds 

 which are not in any near degree related to it," as, for example, 

 our Cowbird (Molothrus). In this country we have no cuckoos 

 that are given to the habit of laying or otherwise depositing their 

 eggs in the nests of other birds, unless it be the habit of the Si- 

 berian cuckoo to do so, and Bendire has said in regard to this 

 species that as " far as I can learn, nothing definite has as yet 

 been ascertained regarding its nesting habits and eggs. They 

 undoubtedly correspond closely to those of its well-known west- 

 ern relative, the common European Cuckoo, Cuculus canorus, and 

 Dr. Stejneger tells me that in its general habits and call notes he 

 could not detect the slightest difference from those of the latter." 

 (Life Hist., N. A. ., p. 32, 1895.) 



It will be remembered that the Siberian Cuckoo (C. c. tele- 

 phonus [Heine] ) is, at the best, but a subspecies of Cuculus cano- 



