Lord Lilford's Young Cuckoo. 257 



tion went, these old saws generally had a basis in 

 fact. 



With regard to this very important question of the 

 note, we must make a small citation from a great 

 authority : 



Lord Lilford says of a young cuckoo taken from 

 the nest and kept in confinement, which survived for 

 nearly two years, that he would sit stolidly on the 

 perch (except at migration time, when he dashed 

 about and injured his plumage), continually chirping. 



" We once only heard him attempt to say ' cuckoo,' 

 but the attempt was a grievous failure."* 



Now, Lord Lilford, we fancy, wrote the above as a 

 record of a fact observed, without any thought of 

 the inference — the important inference — that may be 

 drawn from it. Is contact with the old birds essen- 

 tial to the development of the proper cuckoo-note ? 

 From what we have said above about what is evi- 

 dently their careful efforts to induce it in the young 

 ones, it is so. In Lord Lilford's young cuckoo, this 

 call or note, clearly enough, was not developed ; and 

 a most interesting question, to be solved only by 

 comparison of observations of those who may here- 

 after find nestlings, and, like Lord Lilford, succeed 

 in keeping them in confinement, is, whether the 

 chirping is like to that of any other bird ; and like or 

 not particularly to the bird out of whose nest the 

 unfledged bird has been taken, and of this a very 

 careful note should be made and preserved. 



This little instance, at all events, seems to raise a 

 difficulty— (presenting, so far as cautious inference 

 may be drawn from it), in view of a somewhat over- 



* Birds of Northampton, i, 254. 



