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CUCKOO. 
COMMON CUCKOO. GOWK. 
CoG, OF THE ANCIENT BRITISH. 
PLATE LVII.—FIG. II. 
Cuculus canorus, ‘ 3 ‘ . Linnaeus. Monrtacv. 
Cuculus hepaticus, : : : LatHam. 
Cuculus canorus rufus, . , . Gein. Latham. 
Tus species deposits its parasitical eggs in the nest 
of some other small bird, for which they are not too 
large, being singularly small in proportion to its own 
size—just one-quarter what they should be in proportion 
to those of small birds, than which they are themselves 
four times larger. 
The eggs are not laid until the middle of May, 
and they require about a fortnight’s incubation. They 
are of a dusky grey colour, mottled over with a darker 
shade. Montagu found one so late as the 26th. of June; 
and Mr. Jesse records that a young Cuckoo, which had 
only just left the nest of a Wagtail, was found in Hamp- 
ton Court Park, on the 18th. of August, 1832. The 
young birds are not able to fly in less than five or six 
weeks. 
J. R. Wise, Esq., of Lincoln College, Oxford, has 
obligingly forwarded to me nineteen specimens of the eggs 
of the Cuckoo, from one of which the figure is taken. 
