BLACK-BILLED CUCKOO 191 



the edge of the river meadow, two to three feet from 

 ground, made of slender twigs which are prettily orna- 

 mented with much ramalina lichen, lined with hickory- 

 catkins and pitch pine needles. 



May 14, 1854. A St. Domingo cuckoo, black-billed 

 with red round eye, a silent, long, slender, graceful bird, 

 dark cinnamon ( ?) above, pure white beneath. It is in 

 a leisurely manner picking the young caterpillars out 

 of a nest (now about a third of an inch long) with its 

 long, curved bill. Not timid. 



July 17, 1854. The cuckoo is a very neat, slender, 

 and graceful bird. It belongs to the nobility of birds. 

 It is elegant. 



June 5,1856. A cuckoo's nest with three light bluish- 

 green eggs partly developed, short with rounded ends, 

 nearly of a size ; in the thicket up railroad this side high 

 wood, in a black cherry that had been lopped three feet 

 from ground, amid the thick sprouts ; a nest of nearly 

 average depth ( ?), of twigs lined with green leaves, 

 pine-needles, etc., and edged with some dry, branchy 

 weeds. The bird stole off silently at first. 



Aug. 20, 1857. As I stand there, I hear a peculiar 

 sound which I mistake for a woodpecker's tapping, but 

 I soon see a cuckoo hopping near suspiciously or in- 

 quisitively, at length within twelve feet, from time to 

 time uttering a hard, dry note, very much like a wood- 

 pecker tapping a dead dry tree rapidly, its full clear 

 white throat and breast toward me, and slowly lifting its 

 tail from time to time. Though somewhat allied to that 

 throttled note it makes by night, it was quite different 

 from that. 



