224 CUCULUS CANOEUS. 



Habits. — The Cuckoo chiefly affects openly wooded or park-land, avenues of trees, the borders of woods, 

 scrubby commons or wastes where a few trees are here and there interspersed among the low growth, in which 

 its foster-parents usually nest. In the breeding-season, however, it wanders about so much that it may be 

 fouud in the heart of large woods ; and I observe that Mr. Blanford mentions hearing it in the jungles of the 

 Persian hills. Shortly after arriving in the various localities where it intends to rear its young its welcome 

 note may be heard from daybreak until late in the morning resounding merrily through the woods, which 

 teem with numerous joyful songsters, not a few of which are perhaps destined to be the foster-parents of the 

 Cuckoo's offspring, and to have their own ignominiously expelled by the unprincipled and unscrupulous little 

 stranger ! There is no bird in Europe about which so many strange theories have existed in the popular 

 mind as the " harbinger of spring." Strange crimes and misdemeanours have been accredited to it from the 

 earliest times ; and among these, as is stated by the ancient writer and naturalist Pliny, none is so dire as its 

 devouring its foster-parent ; he remarks, " The young Cuckoo being once fledged and ready to fly abroad is 

 so bold as to seize on the old titling and to eat her up that hatched her.'"' Although we must absolve the 

 Cuckoo from such a want of gratitude as is here depicted, yet the conduct of the young nestling, as will be 

 noticed directly, is in the highest degree unnatural. It is believed by many that the old birds possess the 

 power of fascinating the species in whose nest their egg is to be deposited, such a belief having obtained from 

 the erroneous idea that the Cuckoo actually lays its egg in the nest it has chosen, which it certainly does not. 

 A great difference can be detected in the sound of the Cuckoo's note as uttered by different birds, some giving 

 it out as wuk-koo, the first syllable being very plainly pronounced. The Yarkandis syllabize it by the word 

 kak-kok, which Dr. Scully says he thinks is a better representation of the note than ours. It is the love-call 

 of the bird, and after the breeding-season, as is well known, ceases to be heard, causing many to think that 

 the Cuckoo has left her accustomed haunt, whereas in reality it has only become silent. I have observed 

 in England that it is usually heard before 9 or 10 o'clock, after which the bird is more or less silent until 

 evening, when it again becomes as garrulous as it was in the morning. The Cuckoo's flight is powerful and 

 very Hawk-like, being performed with regular beatings of the wing ; it generally flies a moderate distance, 

 mounting into an upper branch, where it alights and commences its note at once, which it continues for a 

 little time and then becomes silent before moving on again. It is most noisy just at the time of laying. 



Its diet is insectivorous and varied, consisting of caterpillars, grubs, worms, moths, and small insects. 

 The stomach is clothed inside with a thick hairy or villous coating, which is, I believe, peculiar to all the 

 subfamily Cuculinre ; at least all I have shot in Ceylon possess this character in a greater or less degree. 



Nidification. — The chief amount of interest which attaches to the singular economy of the Cuckoo is 

 naturally centered in its nidification, and the strange habit, as exemplified in the whole group of true Cuckoos, 

 of fostering its young upon other birds. Connected with this are many points of great interest to the 

 naturalist, such as its supposed polygamy, its instinct of layiug eggs of a peculiar type to suit those with 

 which it is deposited, its partiality for Warblers' nests, the fact of eggs of peculiar coloration prevailing in 

 different localities, and the habit of conveying the eggs in the bill after laying them and then depositing them 

 in the nest chosen to receive them, all of which justly tend to render the natural history of the Cuckoo one 

 of the most interesting of any bird known. 



In India the Cuckoo has been ascertained to lay during the latter half of May and the first half of June 

 (Hume, 'Nests and Eggs'), usually choosing the nests of Pipits and Chats; among the former the Upland 

 Pipit [Heterura sylvana) and Jerdon's Rock-Pipit [Agrudroma jerdoni), and among the latter the Indian Bush- 

 Chat (Pratincola indica), the dark grey Bush-Chat (P. ferrea), the white-winged Black Robin (P. caprata), 

 and the Magpie Robin [Copsychus saularis) appear to be the favourite species. In the Almorah district 

 Mr. Brooks says they lay in the nests of P. indica and C. saularis, and Mr. Thompson in the nests of Pipits. 

 At Murree, Captain Marshall found the eggs in the nests of A. jerdoni and P. ferrea, and Mr. Hume 

 obtained two eggs in the nests of Heterura sylvana near Kotegurh. 



In Europe it has a great partiality for nests of Warblers ; and in a long list of about a score of these birds 

 given by Dr. Baldamus, in his exhaustive article in the 'Naumannia,' 1853, are mentioned the Blackcap, 

 the Robin, the Garden-Warbler, the Whitethroat, the Lesser Whitethroat, the Reed-Warbler, the Wood- 

 Warbler, the Marsh-Warbler, the Redstart, the Grasshopper-Warbler, the Nightingale, and the Willow- 



