.516 CLASS AVES. • 



lier egg, and retained it in the oesophagus until she regorged 

 it into the nest which she had chosen. Another naturalist 

 told M. Vieillot, that he saw a female cuckow take her egg 

 in her bill, and deposit it in a strange nest. These facts may 

 serve to elucidate the problem we have been considering. 



The cuckow is found in Europe, Asia, Africa, and 

 Australasia ; but not in America. The birds of that part of 

 the world which have been so called, have not the disposition 

 and attributes of the cuckow, for they construct nests, incu- 

 bate, and rear their young. 



Cuckows live on insects, and principally on caterpillars. 

 They also eat berries and soft fruits ; but they are by no 

 means carnassial in the wild state. 



We possess but one species in Europe, which is the Com- 

 mon Cuckow, {Cuculus Canorics,) and of which we may 

 remark the following particulars. 



The adult male has the intestinal tube about twenty in- 

 ches in length, and two coecums of unequal length, one 

 generally fourteen, and the other ten lines, — both directed for- 

 wards, and adhering in their whole length to the great 

 intestine by a slender and transparent membrane. It has one 

 gall-bladder. The reins are situated on each side of the 

 spine, each being divided into three principal lobes, them- 

 selves subdivided into smaller lobules. By this whole appa- 

 ratus is secreted a whitish matter. 



The oesophagus is dilated at its lower part into a kind of 

 glandulous pouch, separated from the ventricle by a contrac- 

 tion. The ventricle is a little muscular in its circumference, 

 membranous in its central part, adhering by fibrous tissues 

 to the muscles of the lower belly, and to the different parts 

 which surround it, and much less gross in the wild bird than 

 in that which is tamed and reared by man ; for in the latter, 

 this sac, generally distended by excess of food, equals the 

 volume of a middling-sized hen's egg, — occupies all the ante- 



