138 BRITISH AND EUROPEAN BIRDS. 



The House-Sparrows, Chaffinches, noisy be- 

 came ; — 

 But their notes, void of melody, always the same. 



other varieties, one with body varied with reddish, the other 

 grey, covered with a few white dots. Inhabits Europe, Asia, 

 and Africa; said to feed on insects, and the larva of moths; 

 migrates. Is heard towards the end of April, and generally 

 ceases to sing about the beginning of July. I heard it at Lew- 

 isham, in Kent, in the year 1824, on the 13th of that month ; it 

 has been heard in Norfolk as late as the last day of it. It would 

 seem, from these facts, that it is heard later in the south-eastern 

 portion of this island, than any where else. Flesh good. The 

 cuckoo is a bird with considerable powers of flight ; the body is 

 slender, wings and tail long; the plumage, although unostenta- 

 tious, is yet handsome. 



Mr.YARREL, to whom we are indebted for an account of some 

 curious facts relative to birds, and whose paper on the evolution 

 of the chick from the egg is alluded to in the Introduction, in- 

 forms me, that he has dissected many cuckoos ; 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 larvce of some insects. I cannot learn from any quarter that 

 the cuckoo has been kept alive in this country (like the nightin- 

 gale) throughout the year. Our ignorance of its genuine food, or 

 the cold of the climate, or both, possibly, have prevented such 

 preservation. 



Another fact relative to this bird, for which I am indebted to 

 Mr. Yarrel, is, that its testes are not larger than those of the. 

 house-sparrow; and hence, Mr. Yarrel seems disposed to 

 infer, that the sexual organs in the cuckoo are in a very low 

 state of excitement. May not this account for the strange ano* 

 maly of this bird's laying its eggs in other birds' nests? 



The cuckoo neither makes a nest, nor hatches her own eggsj 



