122 THE BIRDS OF DEVOX. 



young Cuckoo brought to us iu Xorth Devon late in September which 

 hud become eatangled in a net spread against some late-hanging currants 

 ou a garden-wall. ^[r. C. Ham saw a young bird at Morchard Bishop 

 early in October IbTS ; and one was shot near Plymouth in October 

 1.S38 (J. C. B., Xat. Hist. S. Devon, p. 420). Birds of the year have 

 been killed near Kingsbridge iu the tirst and second weeks of October 

 (K. P. X., MS. Xotes). 



The usual nests into which the Cuckoo inserts her egg (which she 

 first lays on the ground and then carries with her beak to the home she 

 has selcctel for it, thus accounting for Cuckoo's eggs being often found in 

 nests placed in holes iu walls) are those of the Meadow-Pipit, Pied Wagtail, 

 and Hedge-Sparrow ; but there are numerous other birds who are called 

 upon to rear the young Cuckoos, a list of twenty-six having been drawn 

 up in whose nests Cuckoo's eggs have been detected in this country. 

 The late Hev. J. Hellins, of Exeter, furnished us with an instance of 

 a Cuckoo having deposited her egg iu the nest of a AVren, in this case 

 having selected a tiny foster-parent indeed for her voracious young. 

 Small birds pursue and buftt't the Cuckoo whenever she appears among 

 them, because of her Hawk-like appearance. 



The Cuckoo \Aill return year after year to the same nest when con- 

 venient. We knew of a pair of common Wagtails which had their nest 

 in a hole in a garden-wall near to us, and as long as the Wagtails con- 

 tinued to occujjv this hole, which they did for several years in succession, 

 they had the annual distinction to rear a young Cuckoo. The foster- 

 parents attend upon and feed the young Cuckoo for some time after it has 

 left the nest, and, as Col. Montagu has described, the young Cuckoo 

 sprawls upon the ground, lying over on one side to enable the small birds 

 to reach its mouth, and sometimes extends one of its wings upwards for 

 them to perch ujion. For several days, one summer, a young Cuckoo, 

 closely waited upon by two Hedge-Sparrows, frequented our gooseberry 

 bushes when there was a great abundance of the destructive gooseberry 

 grub (the larva? of a sawHy), and with these it was assiduously fed by the 

 small birds. Several times we found an adult Cuckoo at the same spot, 

 doubtless atti-acled by the sawtly larv;p, but we fancied she might also 

 have been in attendance u\)on the young biril. ^Ir. Ross saw several 

 adult Cuckoos together under a gooseberry bush infested with these grubs 

 in his garden at Topsham. Caterpillars of all kinds, especially the spin}- 

 larvaj of certain butterflies ( Frt//t-ss(''), and hairy larvae of large moths, 

 form tlie Cuckoo's favourite food, and good service is rendered in thus 

 destroying the enemies to the foliage of various trees ; some sociable 

 larva) which are very ravenous, like those of the common buff-tip moth, 

 would in a short time strip large trees bare to their poles were they not 

 kept under by Cuckoos and other birds, whose province it is to devour 

 them. Mr. Gatcombe found the stomach of a Cuckoo he examined on May 

 9th, 188o, at Plymouth, tilled with the hairy caterpillars of the fox moth 

 (Zool. 1S85, p. 377). Cuckoos have been successfully kept in this 

 country through the winter, but thev are very delicate birds, and one we 

 had brought through his very greedy youth, and had rendered a very tame 



