120 HALF-HOUB8 IN THE GBEEN LANES. 



in our boyish days with the habit of sucking other 

 birds' eggs, and of cowardly turning tail when 

 "mobbed" by a few smaller nest-builders. We 

 know it builds no nest of its own, but drops its eggs 

 in that of other birds, nature appearing to have 

 endowed the hen cuckoo with a certain mimetic 

 colouring of her eggs according to the species in 

 whose nest she lays, perhaps that they may not be 

 detected by the foster-parents. Recently, the ap- 

 parent carelessness of the female cuckoo for her 

 young has found an apologist, who declares he has 

 repeatedly watched the mother occasionally visit the 

 nest in which she laid eggs, and even the young 

 cuckoo when hatched. It is very certain that, in 

 spite of the attention that has been paid to the 

 cuckoo by ornithologists, there are few of our 

 native common birds with which we are less 

 acquainted. The young cuckoo, also, was further 

 associated in our youthful natural history experience 

 with its selfish habit of ousting its smaller and 

 feebler foster brothers and sisters, and of occupying 

 not only the whole nest, but the active services of 

 their parents in supplying its voracious appetite with 

 food. 



The common songsters of our lanes and woods are 

 too well known to need any description The black- 

 bird, thrush, robin, and wren who does not know 

 these objects ? They are associated with our earliest 

 recollections they are immortalised in the litera- 

 ture of the nursery ! Who does not reroember the 



