European Cuckoo 443 



ing the other occupants of the nest has been recently abundantly confirmed for 

 various Australian Cuckoos. 



From very reliable authority it appears that the European Cuckoo may lay 

 as many as twenty eggs in a season, scattering them one or rarely two in a place, 

 and at intervals of several days, the nesting season extending over a period of 

 about two months. Mr. Hudson rather discredits the notion that Cuckoos may 

 lay eggs which imitate in color and markings those of the bird they are deposited 

 with, but Dr. Sharpe of the British Museum insists that they do this. He says : 

 "The variability in the coloration of the eggs is well known, and it appears that 

 in each individual the coloration of the egg is hereditary. That is to say, the 

 Cuckoos brought up by Meadow Pipits always select that species to be the 

 foster parents of their own young in course of time, the same being the case with 

 regard to Hedge-Sparrows, Wagtails, and other victims of the Cuckoo." This 

 view seems to find support in the statement of Mr. Hartert, another eminent 

 European ornithologist, who gives as his opinion that one female Cuckoo always 

 lays similarly colored eggs, in proof of which he exhibits thirty-one clutches of 

 eggs that were known to have been laid by certain birds. If the shape of the nest 

 permits, the egg is deposited directly in it, but otherwise it may be laid outside 

 and placed in the nest with the bill of the bird, an egg of the owner being often 

 removed to make room for it. As evincing a gleam of the maternal instinct it 

 is a matter of apparently authentic record that the European Cuckoo may occa- 

 sionally rear its own young ; it is very exceptional, however. To their credit be 

 it said, that the common North American Cuckoos enjoy a much better reputa- 

 tion, for they not only usually build a nest for themselves and rear their own 

 young, but are credited with a considerable degree of affection for each other. 



But to return to a broader consideration of the group, it may be said that in 

 general Cuckoos are birds of small or moderate size, the plumage in perhaps the 

 majority of cases being brownish or gray, usually more or less barred below, but 

 there are some notable exceptions in which the plumage is a beautiful emerald- 

 green or even black. Ornamental crests and tufts of feathers, while by no means 

 the rule, are present in a few forms, and the wing-quills are occasionally pro- 

 duced into filiform extremities, while the bare spaces on the cheeks and about 

 the eyes are often brilliantly colored. A majority of the Cuckoos are arboreal, 

 a few, however, being strictly terrestrial. In distribution they are practically 

 cosmopolitan, though most abundant in warm or tropical lands and having but 

 few representatives in the colder regions. They number upward of two hundred 

 species and subspecies, disposed in about forty-five genera, and are distinguished 

 from their nearest relatives, the Plantain-eaters, by the naked oil-gland. The 

 family has been divided into six subfamilies, though this disposition has not been 

 accepted by all systematists. 



Typical Cuckoos. In the typical Cuckoos (Cuculintz), which embrace some 

 twenty genera and very nearly half of the total number of species, the wing is 

 long, pointed, and flat, and does not fit closely to the body, while the tarsus is 

 more or less feathered in front. With very few exceptions, among them the 

 American genus Coccyzus, the members of this subfamily are parasitic, especially 



