134 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



was fed by the little bird. I went to see this extra- 

 ordinary phenomenon, and found that it was a young 

 cuckoo hatched in the nest of a titlark ; it was become 

 vastly too big for its nest, appearing 



. . . . in tcnui re 

 Majores peniias nido extendisse . . . 



and was very fierce and pugnacious, pursuing my finger, 

 as I teased it, for many feet from the nest, and sparring 

 and buffeting with its wings like a game-cock. The dupe 

 of a dam appeared at a distance, hovering about with 

 meat in its mouth, and expressing the greatest solicitude. 



In July I saw several cuckoos skimming over a large 

 pond ; and found, after some observation, that they were 

 feeding on the libellulz, or dragon-flies ; some of which 

 they caught as they settled on the weeds, and some as 

 they were on the wng. Notwithstanding what Linnaeus 

 says, I cannot be induced to believe that they are birds 

 of prey. 



This district affords some birds that are hardly ever 

 heard of at Selborne. In the first place considerable 

 flocks of cross-beaks {loxise curvirostrx) have appeared 

 this summer in the pine groves belonging to this house ; 

 the water-ousel is said to haunt the mouth of the Lewes 

 river, near Newhaven ; and the Cornish chough builds, I 

 know, all along the chalky cliffs of the Sussex shore. 



I was greatly pleased to see little parties of ring-ousels 

 (my newly-discovered migrators) scattered, at intervals, 

 all along the Sussex Downs from Chichester to Lewes. 

 Let them come from whence they will, it looks very 

 suspicious that they are cantoned along the coast in order 

 to pass the channel when severe weather advances. They 

 visit us again in April, as it should seem, in their return ; 

 and are not to be found in the dead of winter. It is re- 

 markable that they are very tame, and seem to have no 



