PIGEONS. 365 
The general colour of the Cuckoo’s egg is mottled reddish grey, but the 
tint is very variable in different individuals, as I can testify from personal 
experience. It has also been noted that the colour of the egg varies with 
the species in whose nest it is to be placed, so that the egg which is intended 
to be hatched by the hedge-warbler is not precisely of the same colour as 
that which is destined for the nest of the pipit. 
The mode by which the Cuckoo contrives to deposit her eggs in the nest 
of sundry birds was extremely dubious, until a key was found to the problem 
by a chance discovery made by Le Vaillant. He had shot a female Cuckoo, 
and on opening its mouth in order to stuff it with tow, he found an egg 
lodged very snugly within the throat. 
The peculiar note of the Cuckoo is so well known as to need no particular 
description, but the public is not quite so familiar with the fact that the note 
changes according to the time of year. When the bird first begins to sing, 
the notes are full and clear; but towards the end of the season they become 
hesitating, hoarse, and broken, like the breaking voice of a young lad. This 
peculiarity was noticed long ago by observant persons, and many are the 
country rhymes which bear allusion to the voice and the sojourn of the 
Cuckoo. For example:— 
“In April He alters his tune. 
Come he will. In July 
In May He prepares to fly. 
He sings all day. In August 
In June Go he must.” 
In general appearance the Cuckoo bears some resemblance to a bird of 
prey, but it has little of the predaceous nature. It is rather curious that 
small birds have a tendency to treat the Cuckoo much as they treat the 
hawks and owls, following it wherever it flies in the open country, and 
attending it through the air. 
The colour of the plumage is bluish grey above, with the exception of the 
wings and tail, which are black, and barred with white on the exterior 
feathers. The chin, neck, and breast are ashen grey, and the abdomen and 
under wing-coverts are white, barred with slaty grey. 
COLUMB&; OR DOVES AND PIGEONS. 
THE large order of COLUMB&, or the Pigeon tribe, comes now under our 
notice. It contains many beautiful and interesting birds; but as its members 
are so extremely numerous, only a few typical examples can be mentioned. 
All the Pigeons may be distinguished from the poultry, and the gallinaceous 
birds in general, by the form of the bill, which is arched towards the tip, and 
has a convex swelling at the base, caused by a gristly kind of plate which covers 
the nasal cavities, and which in some species is very curiously developed. 
AMONG the most extraordinary of birds, the PASSENGER PIGFON may take 
very high rank, not on account of its size or beauty, but on account of the 
extraordinary multitudes in which it sometimes migrates from one place to 
another. The scenes which take place during these migrations are so 
strange, so wonderful, and so entirely unlike any events on this side of the 
Atlantic, that they could not be believed but for the trustworthy testimony by 
which they are corroborated. 
Wilson, who was fortunate enough to witness some of these migrations, 
has written a most vivid account of them. After professing his belief that 
the chief object of the migration is the search after food, and that the birds 
having devoured all the nutriment in one part of the country take wing in 
order to feed on the beech-mast of another region, he proceeds to describe a 
breeding-place seen by himself in Kentucky, which was several miles in 
