194 SIRD BEHAVIOUR 



it deposits its own. Many must be familiar with 

 the old thyme about the Cuckoo, about which it 

 is said that 



She sucks little birds' eggs 

 To make her voice clear. 



A taste for the eggs of other birds is not at all 

 uncommon among the insectivorous species — at 

 any rate it frequently develops in captivity, and 

 as to the antiquity of the tradition, it must be 

 remembered that formerly Cuckoos were evidently 

 far more familiar to the British public than they 

 are now, judging by the allusions to them in our 

 literature. Shakespeare in the " Midsummer 

 Night's Dream " makes Bully Bottom the Weaver 

 allude to the " plain-song Cuckoo grey." 



I fancy most people nowadays, whether weavers 

 or writers, would not be able to say off-hand of 

 what colour a Cuckoo is. The colour of the young 

 Cuckoo, however, with its black barring on a 

 ground of brown above and whitish below, is 

 evidently pretty familiar, this changeling being so 

 often fottnd in the nest of its fosterer, and exposing 

 itself when fledged quite freely until it leaves us 

 in the autumn, in a manner very unlike the stealthy 

 habits of its parents in the spring ; so that it is 

 not astonishing that " Cuckoo " is the poultry- 

 fancier's term for a barred grey fowl such as the 

 Plymouth-rock, though any brown shade in this 

 breed would now be a disquahfication. 



It may be mentioned that there are wild birds 



