and Nests of the Ciickoo, S99 



as well as those on the rump, are unusually long, dashed 

 with cinereous, and slightly tipped with white." * 



The young cuckoo, on account of the reddish brown 

 plumage just described, has by some distinguished naturalists 

 been ranked as a separate species, under the name of the 

 red cuckoo (Cuculus rufus Brisson, C. hepaticus Lath. Ind.), 

 There can be no doubt, however, but that, from recent inves- 

 tigations, this supposed red, or hepatic, cuckoo is not distinct 

 from the common species, f 



The variety of the colouring in the cuckoo has, likewise, 

 more than once caused it to be mistaken for several other 

 birds, such as different kinds of hawks, for the wood pigeon J, 

 and for a merlin (Falco ^^salon Temminck)§, so that Mr. 

 Masters is by no means alone in the affair. Nay, I have 

 just met with a passage in White's Selborne which furnishes 

 a circumstance exactly parallel. 



" A countryman told me," says White, " he had found a 

 young fern owl in the nest of a small bird on the ground, and 

 that, it was fed by the little bird. I went to see this extra- 

 ordinary phenomenon, and found that it was a young cuckoo, 

 hatched in the nest of a titlark ; it was become vastly too 

 big for its nest, appearing ^ 



in tenui re 



Majores pennas nido extendisse ; ' || 



and was very fierce and pugnacious, pursuing my finger as 1 

 teased it for many feet from the nest, and sparring and buf- 

 feting with its wings like a game-cock. The dupe of a dam 

 appeared at a distance, hovering about with meat in its mouth, 

 and expressing the greatest solicitude." -|- 



I think, after these circumstances being justly weighed, 

 that the night-jar ought to be exculpated from the charge of 

 being a parasite, though it certainly does not take the trouble 

 of constructing any sort of nest, but lays its two eggs (the 

 cuckoo lays six) on the bare ground, among heath, furze, or 

 long grass, and usually near a wood, sometimes at the foot of 

 trees, or in the holes of their trunks. 



J. Rennie. 

 Lee, Kent, May 22. 



* Supplement to Ornith. Diet., art. Cuckoo, 

 t See Mag. of Nat. Hist., vol. ii. p. 249, 230. 

 X M. Herissaut in Mem. de I'Acad. des Sciences, 1752, p. 417. 

 § Salerne, Hist, des Oiseaux, p. 40. 

 IJ " To have stretched its wings beyond the little nest." 

 4- Nat. Hist, of Selborne, i. 225., ed. London, 1825. , 

 D D 4 



