170 VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF LAKELAND 



observed near Shap Wells on the 14th of September. This bird 

 happily escaped injury. An individual which Mr. Backhouse 

 brought to me on the 12th of October had been less fortunate. 

 The poor bird had been searching for insects in the light soil of 

 a rabbit-warren at Bowness on Sol way, when it entered a steel 

 trap, which crushed its feet so severely that it was found neces- 

 sary to kill it. Its plumage was that of a young bird, worn 

 and frayed, as though the bird had been contending against 

 adverse elements in its flight across the North Sea. 



Order PICA Rl 'JE. Fam. CUGULIDJE. 



CUCKOO. 



Guculus canorus, L. 



The time-honoured joke against the Borrowdale people, 

 whom tradition accredits with building a wall to keep in the 

 1 gowk,' is itself an illustration of the abundance of the bird 

 upon the moors of the Lake district. Far up the mountain-side, 

 where bird-life becomes scarce and little varied, you may gener- 

 ally hear the Cuckoo practising its song as it wanders in search 

 of the caterpillars upon which it chiefly subsists. In default of 

 insect-life, this Cuckoo sometimes swallows strange substances. 

 Mr. Walton of Grarrigill sent to me a quantity of dried grass 

 which he had found in the stomach of a Cuckoo, swallowed no 

 doubt to appease the pangs of hunger, and worked up into a 

 round ball by physiological action. Among the nests in which 

 the egg of this Cuckoo has been found in Lakeland, I may men- 

 tion those of the Whinchat, Robin, Pied Wagtail, Reed Bunting, 

 Chaffinch, Yellow Bunting, Hedge Sparrow, Linnet, and Twite. 

 Mr. Heysham received from Alston a Twite's nest containing 

 three eggs of that species and one of the Cuckoo, in June 1831, 

 The late William Greenup found a Cuckoo's egg in a Twite's 

 nest in May 1858. James Smith found a Cuckoo's egg* in a 

 Linnet's nest at Bowness on Solway in June 1891. 



