CUCKOO. 193 



where they are left to perish, it being now the only 

 occupant ; and from its voracious appetite giving the 

 foster parents plenty to do. 



Recent evidence tends to prove that the Cuckoo lays 

 four or five eggs in a season, at intervals of several 

 days, in which she has time to select new nests, for it 

 is a very rare circumstance to find more than one 

 Cuckoo's egg in any given nest, and if two should be 

 found, it is very doubtful if both are laid by the same 

 bird. They are not usually found before May. The 

 Cuckoo may actually lay the egg in the nest, but seems 

 more frequently to lift it in with her beak. I have 

 myself found the egg in a Wren's nest, where cer- 

 tainly the Cuckoo could not have got in. In 1883 one 

 of our number of young collectors found the egg in a 

 Thrush's nest, a very unusual occurrence. There is 

 an undoubted resemblance in the majority of cases 

 in the colour of the Cuckoo's eggs to the eggs of the 

 bird in whose nest they are laid, and it seems likely 

 that this is not from any power which the bird has to 

 impart a particular colour to its egg, but from the 

 probability that a Cuckoo which has been reared by 

 a particular foster parent always lays its eggs in the 

 nests of that species, and so, for instance, in Pied 

 Wagtails' nests, we usually may expect to find the 

 Cuckoo's eggs laid in them resemble one another and 

 the Wagtail's eggs. 



The plumage of the Cuckoo varies very much. The 

 general colour of the old bird is slate grey on the 

 upper parts, brown on the wings, breast grey, shading 

 to greyish white lower down. It is a difficult bird to 

 rear. We attempted to bring up a young one this 

 year, but it only survived six weeks. They may be 

 fed on raw meat. 



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