PLATE XLL 



and other preceding writers ; who have thus embellifhed its hiftory ; 

 or to add to general information any material circumftance thathas 

 evaded the vigilance and accuracy of Latham, 



The note of this bird is a call to love, and is peculiar to the male ; 

 who, perched on the branch of a tree, or the fummit of an eminence, 

 thus invites the female from the coppice in which me fits in filence : 

 in a calm evening his note may be heard among the trees far off; and 

 when difappointed of its mate, the neighbouring woods reecho his 

 hollow note at the diftance of a quarter of a mile. 



All Authors have allowed that the Cuckow does not hatch its own 

 eggs, but depofits them in the neft of fome other bird, generally in 

 that of a Hedge- Sparrow, Water- Wagtail, or a Yellow-Hammer ; 

 fome Writers fay the Cuckow lays only one eggj others two * in the 

 neft ; the fofler-parent attends them with the fame care as her 

 own, and when the brood is hatched, fhe fhews no difiike to the 

 fpurious offspring ; flie treats them with equal tendernefs, and toils 

 with the fame affiduity to fupply them with food ; the young Cuckow* 

 when fledged, follows its little inftrudor for a fhort time j but as its 

 appetite encreafes, and the fmall Infects it collects, in imitation of its 

 fuppofed parent, foon become infufficient for its fubfiilence, they fepa- 

 rate. Its ingratitude is proverbial among the French f, from a ridi- 

 culous fuppofition that it changed into a Hawk, and devoured its nurfe. 



About the end of June the call of the male ceafes, though it does 

 not take its final departure till the end of September or beginning of 



* The egg figured by Sepp is like the Jackdaw's, both in fize and fhape, of a greeni/h 

 white, fpeckled with brown. — Latham fays it is certainly not that of the Cuckow, which 

 he defcribes not much bigger than that of the Hedge-Sparrow, greatly elongated in 

 Jlhape, the ground colour not unlike it, and mottled all over with ferruginous purple, 



\ « Ingrat comme un Coucou." 



I % Oclokr. 



