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without hairs, it being filled with vegetable fibres and blades of grass.' I have never met with a 

 fragment of the elytra, the articulation of a limb, or any other hard part of an insect in the 

 intestines, the contents of which are a uniform pulpy and impalpable mass of a light red colour. 

 Of course the remains of insects in the stomach must be thrown up in pellets, as by Hawks and 

 Owls. Hairs and other matters I have several times found in so great a mass as to distend the 

 stomach nearly to its greatest capacity. It has-been conjectured that the Cuckoo occasionally 

 feeds on eggs, especially those of the small birds in the nests of which it deposits its own ; but I 

 am not aware of its having been caught in the act. It has also been accused of eating young 

 birds ; but no one has found bones or feathers in its stomach." 



That the Cuckoo does not construct its own nest or rear its own young, is a fact that has 

 been known from early ages ; but the details respecting the mode in which its eggs are intrusted 

 to foster-parents, the reasons wherefore it does not itself attend to the cares of incubation, and 

 for the selection it makes of certain other species, especially songsters, to rear its young, have 

 formed subjects for almost endless discussion. It would be, to say the least, unadvisable to 

 comment fully on the various theories that have been propounded by different naturalists whose 

 notes I have carefully perused in the compilation of the present article, amongst whom I may 

 especially name the following, viz. Messrs. Altum, Baldamus, Bechstein, Brehm, Fredrich, Glog'er, 

 Von Homeyer, Miiller, Naumann, Newton, Passler, Dawson-Kowley, Von Tschusi-Schmidhofen, 

 Walter, and Count Wodzicki ; and I will only give as concisely as possible the result at which I 

 have arrived from personal observation together with a careful study of the various articles on 

 the subject. 



The Cuckoo does not appear ever to live in monogamy ; but the female permits advances 

 promiscuously from several males, and lives in a state of universal concubinage or polyandry ; 

 indeed, instead of waiting until the male seeks her, she roves about the country in search of 

 different lovers who will gratify her desires. In number the males of this species appear greatly 

 to exceed the females ; and the former have each their regular district, whereas the female will 

 visit the districts inhabited by several males ; and Dr. A. E. Brehm relates that a female which he 

 watched in the neighbourhood of Berlin, and which was easily recognizable by a broken feather 

 in her tail, used regularly to visit the districts inhabited by at least five males. The eggs of the 

 Cuckoo are also deposited at considerable intervals ; and this fact, together with its irregular matri- 

 monial arrangements, fully explains, it appears to me, its reasons for not undertaking the cares of 

 incubation. Mr. A. Walter, who has carefully collected what data he could on the subject, believes 

 that a hen Cuckoo will lay four eggs in about three weeks, and that at least four days intervene 

 between the deposit of one egg and the next succeeding one, sometimes, however, six or even 

 seven days intervening. When a female enters the district inhabited by a male the latter so soon 

 as he is aware of her presence exhibits the greatest excitement, utters his call-note loudly and 

 frequently, being answered by the female, and chases her with the greatest ardour ; and it not 

 unfrequently occurs that two or three males are in full chase of a female, who entices them on 

 and grants her favours to one after the other as they approach her, after which each male will 

 return to his own district. It appears also that not only does the male return year after year 

 to the same locality, but the female, though she wanders about in search of various lovers when 

 pairing, seems to affect a particular district, where she deposits her eggs in the most suitable 

 nests she can find ; for peculiarly coloured or marked eggs of the Cuckoo, which are presumably 



