234 
Cc U GC KO O. Crass If. 
cuckoos, we caught not fewer than five male birds 
in one feafon. His note is fo uniform, that his 
name in all languages feems to have been derived 
from it; and in all other countries it is ufed in the 
fame reproachful fenfe. , 
The plain fong cuckoo grey, 
Whole note full many a man doth mark, 
And dares not anfwer nay. 
Shake/pear. 
The reproach feems to arife from this bird mak-. 
ing ufe of the bed or neft of another to depofit its 
eges in; leaving the care of its young to a wrong 
parent; but Suvenal with more juftice gives the 
infamy to the bird in whofe neft the fuppofititious . 
eges were layed, 
Tu tibi tunc curruca places*. 
A water-wagtail, a yellow hammer, or hedge- 
fparrow +, is generally the nurfe of the young cuc- 
koos; who, if they happen to be hatched at the 
fame time with the genuine off-fpring, quickly 
deftroy them, by overlaying them as their growth is 
* sat, Vi. 275. 
t I have been eye-witnefs to two inftances: when a boy I 
faw a young cuckoo taken out of the neft of a hedge {parrow: 
and in 1773 took another out of that of a yellow hammer: 
the old yellow hammer feemed as anxious abcut the lofs as 
if it had been its proper offspring. 
| foon 
