5i2 C U C K O W. 



Food. tame, fo as to become familiar. They will eat in this ftate 



bread and milk, fruits, infetls, eggs, and flefh, either cooked or raw j 

 but in a ftate of nature, 1 believe, chiefly live on caterpillars ; which, 

 in the few I have obferved, were all of the fmooth kind ; others 

 have found vegetable matter, beetles, and {mail Jlones*. When fat, 

 faid to be as £?ood eating as a Land Rail, 



Their coming into England, where they are only migratory, is 

 about the middle of April; at leaft we hear, about that time, 

 their firft call to love, which is only ufed by the male. About the 

 end of June this ceafes, though the Cuckow does not take its final 

 leave till the end of September, or the beginning ofOtlober ; but per- 

 haps fome few may ftay with us, or how fhall we account for 

 their being heard to call in February f. I have heard this bird 

 at midnight two feveral times. 

 Migration. The major part are fuppofed to go into Africa, fince they are 



obferved to vifit the I/land of Malta twice in a year, in their paf- 

 fage backwards and forwards, as is fuppofed, to that part of the 

 world ; they are well known alfo at Aleppo J. To the North, it 

 is faid to be common in Sweden ; but not to appear fo early, by 

 a month, as with us. Ruffia is not deftitute of this bird. And 

 we have feen a fpecimen brought from Kamtfchatka, now in the 

 poffeffion of Sir Jofeph Banks. 



i . 



Var. A. Le Coucou roux, Brif. orn. iv. p. no. N° I. A. 



RUFOUS 



C- ^np'HIS is a mere' variety of a young bird, having the upper 



escript-ion. JL p arts varied with rufous, where the other is white. 



* In fome manufcript notes, which I faw at Sir A. Lever's, in the hand- 

 writing of the late Dr. Defiant, he mentions finding hairy caterpillars, and egg- 

 Jhells, in the ftomach of a Cuckoiv. 



f Br. Zool. i. p. 233. t Rufell Alep. p. 71. 



Coucou 



