32 Life History of Common Cuckoo. 



Mr. Cecil Smith writes about Guernsey : " Tree 

 and meadow - pipits, skylarks and stonechats, from 

 their numbers and the numbers of their nests, must 

 be the foster-parents most usually selected in the 

 Vale of Guernsey ; other favourites, such as wag- 

 tails, hedge - sparrows, and robins, being compara- 

 tively scarce in that part of the island. ^'■ 



The Vale of Guernsey is singular in its lack of 

 trees — it is devoted to gardening and culture of the 

 vine ; — flat and over considerable spaces gorse-clad, 

 it was at one time under water. 



As one other indication of the wide range and 

 adaptabihty of the cuckoo we may note that Mr. 

 Robert Collett in his Bird Life in Arctic Norway 

 puts Cuculus canorus among the breeding species of 

 Arctic Norway. 



Mr. Popham found Cuculus canorus on the Yenisei. 

 It arrived on May 22 and soon became common ; and 

 there its cry is " Hoo, hoo," a sound which Seebohm 

 attributed to the Himalayan Cuckoo. " The forest 

 round Yeniseisk is full of cuckoos, but we soon left 

 them behind us." t 



III. 



The rule laid down for birds generally with regard 

 to helplessness after hatching is not without very 

 marked exceptions, even in cases where the young are 

 not, as in the case of partridges, water-hens, coots, 

 etc., able to move legs and run freely, and have 

 what is strictly no period of helplessness proper after 



* Birds of Guernsey, p. 98. 

 Mbis, October, 1898. 



