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CUCKOO. 



COMMON CUCKOO. GOWK. 



COG, OF THE ANCIENT BRITISH. 



PLATE LVIT. FIG. II. 



Cuculus canorus, .... Linnaeus. Montagit. 



Cuculus hepaticus, . . . Latham. 



Cuculus canorus rufus, . . . Gmelin. Latham. 



This 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. 



