COMMON CUCKOO. 197 



May 1833, says it did not contain any eggs so large as 

 ordinary-sized peas. May not the small size of these 

 organs, and the probable low degree of excitement, also 

 diminish the interest attached to the providing for the 

 wants of the young? but that this feeling is not wholly 

 obliterated in every instance is the opinion of Mr. J. E. 

 Gray of the British Museum; who, from observations 

 made by himself, states that the Cuckoo does not uniform- 

 ly desert her offspring to the extent that has been sup- 

 posed ; but, on the contrary, that she continues in the 

 precincts where the eggs are deposited, and in all proba- 

 bility sometimes takes the young under her protection 

 when they are sufficiently fledged to leave the nest. 



The Cuckoo is commonly distributed every summer over 

 England, Ireland, and Scotland ; it also visits Orkney. 

 It is found in Denmark and Sweden, and over Scandi- 

 navia generally. Mr. Barrow, when in the northern part 

 of Norway, heard the Cuckoo near Roraas, at an elevation 

 of three thousand feet above the level of the sea ; and 

 Linnaeus, in the account of his Tour in Lapland, mentions 

 having heard the Cuckoo there as early as the 13th of 

 May, and as late as the 10th of July. This bird is found 

 in Siberia, and over great part of Asia. The Zoological 

 Society have received specimens from the Himalaya Moun- 

 tains, which are precisely similar to our British bird, and 

 quite distinct from the Cuculus micropterus of Mr. John 

 Gould from the same locality, which, though very like 

 our bird in size and colour, is at once distinguished from 

 it by its larger beak, shorter wings, whence its name, and 

 its smaller feet. A collection of birds, formed by Major James 

 Franklin, F.R.S. on the banks of the Ganges, and in the 

 mountain chain of Upper Hindoostan, exhibited at the 

 Zoological Society in August 1831, includes specimens of 



