YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO. 433 



apple orchards occur. On account of its shy and retired habits, it is much more frequently 

 heard than seen. Being decidedly a bird of the trees and bushes, it rarely comes down 

 to the ground, where its motions are very awkward. On the wing it is an expert, its 

 flight being exceedingly swift, noiseless, and graceful, "and it moves or rather glides 

 through the densest foliage with the greatest ease, now flying sidewise, and again 

 twisting and doubling at right angles through the thickest shrubbery almost as easily 

 as if passing through unobstructed space, its long tail assisting it very materially in all 

 its complicated movements. Few of our birds show to better advantage on the wing 

 than the Yellow-billed Cuckoo. It rarely indulges in protracted flights on its breeding 

 grounds, but keeps mostly in the shadiest trees, in dense thickets, along water courses, 

 or on small islands, shrubbery bdrderirig country roads, the outskirts of forests, and 

 were it not for its peculiar call-notes, which draw attention to its whereabouts at once, 

 it would be much less frequently seen than it usually is, even where fairly common; on 

 the whole, it must be considered a rather shy, retiring, and suspicious bird." (Bendire.) 



While the Yellow-billed Cuckoo is a timid, shy, and retired bird in most localities, 

 it becomes very confident and conspicuous in gardens and in hedge-rows where it feels 

 safe and where it has been convinced that man is its friend and not its enemy. In Texas 

 I found the nest always in thickets and small trees overrun with climbers, and often also 

 in Cherokee rose hedges, and the characteristic structure was always very frail. Com- 

 posed exteriorly of small sticks, rootlets, a few dry leaves, and a little Spanish moss, 

 the lining was usually made of dry blossoms of hickories and oaks, a few grasses, pine 

 needles, and bits of cotton. Often I found the soft, grayish, w^ooly stems of a gnaphalium- 

 like plant {Evax prolifera and Evax tnulticaulis, the former growing in the dry post-oak 

 w^ood, the latter in somewhat low^er ground; the first one is especially a favorite nesting 

 material with all the birds of the post-oak region) among the material, and sometimes 

 also a piece of paper or calico is found. The lining materials "are loosely placed on the 

 top of the little platform," writes Major Charles Bendire, "which is frequently so small 

 that the extremities of the bird project on both sides, and there is scarcely any depres- 

 sion to keep the eggs from rolling out even in only a moderate windstorm, unless one 

 of the parents sits on the nest, and it is, therefore, not a rare occurrence to find broken 

 eggs lying under the trees and bushes in which the nests are placed. Some of these are 

 so slightly built that the eggs can be readily seen through the bottom. An average 

 nest measures about 5.00 inches in outer diameter by 1.50 inches in depth. They are 

 rarely placed over twenty feet from the ground, generally from four to eight feet upon 

 horizontal limbs of oaks, beech, gum, dogwood, hawthorn, mulberry, pine, cedar, fir, 

 apple, orange, fig, and other trees. Thick bushes, particularly such as are overrun with 

 wild grape and other vines, as well as hedge-rows, especially those of Osage orange, are 

 also frequently selected for nesting sites. The nests are ordinarily well concealed by the 

 overhanging and surrounding foliage, and while usually shy and timid at other times, 

 the Yellow-billed Cuckoo is generally courageous and bold in defense of its chosen home; 

 the bird on the nest not unfrequently will raise its feathers at right angles from the 

 body and occasionally even fly at the intruder." 



The number of eggs vary from two to six, but sets of three are most common. 

 The eggs follow usually at such long intervals, that one or the other hatches before the 



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