32 FROM SPRING TO FALL. 



When I was younger, one I knew who posed as a 

 very great authority would not believe that the young 

 cuckoo shouldered the young of its foster - parents 

 out of the nest, so that it might have all the food 

 they could get for itself. 



It is a most wonderful phase of natural life, those 

 dead young that the cuckoo has shouldered out, be- 

 neath the nest, and the speckled parasite filling up 

 the whole of it. And in spite of all that, to think of 

 his being most carefully fed and tended by his 

 foster-parents ! A young cuckoo is a bad lot. 



On the moors and commons of southern counties, 

 in certain localities, cuckoos in their season were 

 abundant before alterations had taken place. They 

 are fairly numerous now, for I can get a young one 

 from the nest out of which he has turned the right 

 owners, at almost any time in the right season. 



The egg of the cuckoo is very small, considering 

 the size of the bird. This, when laid, the cuckoo — 

 in seven cases out of ten, but there are exceptions — 

 carries in her capacious mouth, and drops it in the 

 nest of the bird she has selected. Those that know 

 the nesting habits of the tree and meadow pipits 

 look for them where others would not. A small hoi- 



