The Zoologist— March, 1808. 1105 



On Certain Peculiarities in the Life-History of the Cuckoo, more 



especially with reference to the Colouring of its Eggs. 



By the Rev. A. C. Smith * 



" And listen to the vagrant cuckoo's tale." 



I have long had the intention to write some account of the cuckoo, 

 as I intimated in one of my former papers on the " Ornithology of 

 Wills," f because there is so much misconception abroad about the 

 habits of that bird, J and because it is one of such extraordinary 

 interest. It is even now a common popular belief, handed down from 

 the time of Aristotle, that the cuckoo changes in the course of the 

 summer into a hawk ; while Pliny ,§ who wrote on Natural History, 

 gravely asserted (and that assertion is still upheld by many in these 

 days), that the young cuckoo devours its foster brethren, and finally 

 its most attentive foster parents: hence the Swedish proverb, "en 

 otacksam gok," || implying " an ungrateful fellow." Even Linnaeus 

 gave credence to this absurd slander; and in our own country 

 Shakspeare utters the same calumny. In the play of Ileury IV. he 

 makes that monarch exclaim : 



" And being fed by us, you used us SO 

 As that ungentle gull, the cuckoo's bird 

 Useth ibe sparrow : did oppress our nest: 

 Grew by our feeding to so great a bulk 

 Tliat even our love durst not come near your siglit 

 For fear of swallowing : but with nimble wing, 

 We were constrained for safety's sake to fly." 



And again, in ' King Lear,' the fool is made to say 



'■ The hedge sparrow fed tlie cuckoo so long 

 That it had its head bit off by its young.'' 



* [Read before the Wilts Archaeological and Natural History Society, during the 

 Annual Meeting at Salisbury, September 14th, 1865, and printed here as an intro- 

 duction to a translatiou by the Rev. A. C. Smith of a paper by Dr. Baldamus, which 

 will follow in course ] 



f 'Wiltshire Magazine,' vol. ix. page 57. 



% Among other errors abroad with regard to this ill-usfd bird, the English 

 translators of the Bible included it in the list of unclean birds, which the children of 

 Israel were forbidden to eat. (Levil. xi. 16, Deut. xiv. 15.) But Bochart, Gesenius 

 and others have long since proved that not the cuckoo, but the sea-gull was the 

 species intended. (Smith's ' Dictionary of the Bible.') 



§ Pliny Hist. Nat. lib. 10, cap. 9. 



|| "Gok," is no other than the old Saxon " geac," and the cuckoo is still often 

 called " gowk " in some parts of England. (Bosworth's ' Anglo-Saxon Dictionary.') 

 SECOND SERIES — VOL. III. M 



