PRELIMINARY NOTICES. 



On the Cuckoo. 



In regard to the cuckoo not being a climbing bird, which 

 your Reviewer, in a note, decidedly affirms, (an affirmation 

 without any evidence, to which one scarcely knows how to 

 reply,) I can only say that as few, if any, persons have seen 

 this singular bird climbing trees for its food, we can only 

 reason from the few facts which we possess concerning it. 

 It is, we know, furnished with scansorial feet, and I have 

 never seen it collect its food on the ground ; indeed, except 

 in its flight, have rarely seen it any where else but on trees, 

 not often, if ever, on bushes or near the ground. The 

 cuckoo kept in a cage, as mentioned in Ornithologia, page 

 142, did occasionally pick up its food, but this it always did 

 while it was on the perch ; if an earthworm happened to 

 fall from its beak it never descended to the bottom of the 

 cage to pick it up. I think it therefore quite fair to con- 

 clude that it does climb about the trees which it frequents, 

 and possibly obtains its food from them. Mr. Yarrell, 

 than whom perhaps a more accurate and intelligent observer 

 never existed, has dissected many cuckoos, and he says that 

 the stomach is similar in structure to the woodpecker's, and 

 therefore fitted for the digestion of animal food only ; that 

 the contents of the stomach invariably indicate the presence 

 of such food, namely, the larva of some insects. Surely 

 these facts warrant us in placing this bird among the 

 scansors. 



The public papers informed us, last summer, 1828, of some 

 one near Worthing having been fortunate enough to pre- 

 serve a cuckoo through the winter ; if this notice should 

 meet the eye of the possessor of the bird, a communication 



