52 OBSERVATIONS ON THE CUCKOO. 
spring, but, as it is a bird less familiar than many 
which have been mentioned, its nest is not so often 
discovered. Z 
The young Cuckoo, soon after it is extricated from 
the egg, commences the extraordinary practice of 
turning out its companions, which are usually left to 
destruction. The mode of accomplishing this is very 
curious: with the assistance of its rump and wings 
it contrives to get a young bird upon its back, and 
making a lodgment for the burden by elevating its 
pinions, clambers backward with it up the side of the 
nest till it reaches the top, where, resting for a mo- 
ment, it throws off its load with a jerk, and quite 
disengages it from the nest. It remains in this situ- 
ation a short time, feeling about with the extremities 
of its wings as if to be convinced that the business is 
properly executed, and then drops into the nest again. 
It frequently examines, as it were, an egg or nestling 
with the ends of its wings before it begins its ope- 
rations ; and the nice sensibility which these parts 
appear to possess seems sufficiently to compensate for 
the want of sight, of which sense it is at first desti- 
tute. It is wonderful to see the extraordinary ex- 
ertions of the young Cuckoo, when it is two or three 
days old, if a bird be put into the nest which is too 
weighty for it to lift out. In this state it seems ever 
restless and uneasy; but the disposition for turning 
out its companions continues to decline from the time 
it is two or three till it is about twelve days old, 
