The Black-billed Cuckoo 



By C. W. LEISTER, Ithaca, N. Y. 

 With photographs by the Author 



THE Cuckoo is a bird of mystery. He glides from place to place through 

 the trees with an ease and quietness that is uncanny. Along with this 

 unbirdlike characteristic, he is a ventriloquist. Often you hear his 

 repeated kuk-kuk, kuk-kuk, but it is very difficult to tell how far away or in 

 what direction to find him. 



Sitting on a branch, he moves his head slowly from side to side ; his sharp 

 eye soon sees the caterpillar eating the leaves. There is a quick bob of his 

 beak, and the caterpillar disappears down his throat, with a gleam in his red- 

 dish eye, and the Cuckoo 

 is ready for another victim. 

 Always hungry, and with 

 caterpillars forming the 

 principal part of his diet 

 (the more hairy they are 

 the better he seems to like 

 them), he is one of the most 

 valuable birds we have. 



Unlike the European 

 representative of the family, 

 it is not customary for the 

 American Cuckoo to lay 

 eggs in the nests of other 

 birds, but they have been 

 known to lay in other 

 Cuckoos' nests, and, very 

 rarely, they have para- 

 sitized other birds. Due to 

 this parasitic habit, so 

 widely mentioned, the 

 Cuckoo is well known throughout the country and for some peculiar reason, 

 probably that he is supposed to utter his call-notes before a storm, he is 

 commonly called 'Rain-Crow' or 'Rain Dove.' 



I was eager to study this interesting bird, so, when I found a nest of the 

 Black-billed species in a small clump of wild cherry and young elm trees, I 

 resolved to watch the nest and take some photographs. 



The nest contained three dull bluish eggs, and the female had been incu- 

 bating them for they were quite warm. But she had doubtless heard my 

 approach and quietly slipped from the nest. The next day a make-believe 

 camera, made up of three sticks and an old oil-can, was set up nearby, so that 



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YOUNG BLACK-BILLED CUCKOO 

 The quill-sheaths remain close until the bird is nearly ready 

 to leave the nest, then open within a few hours 



