118 



On certain Peculiarities in the 



though a single glance at the small weak legs and feet, and the 

 straight powerless slender beak, would at once undeceive on J 

 nearer examination : that, with the exception of the Iloney-buz-l 

 zard (Buteo apivorus) it is the largest of British insectivorous 

 birds ;* for its food consists of insects of many sorts, but more par- 

 ticularly of the several species of hairy caterpillars which abound 

 in the early summer, and which long-haired caterpillars are rejected 

 by almost all birds, with the exception of the Cuckoo : so that it 

 has been thought by some, that the reason why that bird leaves 

 this country so early, is the failure by the middle of July of its 

 favourite food. 2 I may observe, too, that it is the male bird 

 alone which gives utterance to the peculiar note which we hail sc 

 gladly as an announcement of spring, though among other popular: 

 errors, the following old couplet attributes the song to the female, 21 : 



1 ( The Cuckoo is a pretty bird, and sings as she flies, 

 She brings us good tidings, and tells us no lies." 



possibly however, this may be only the indiscriminate use of the 

 masculine and feminine pronoun so common in Wiltshire : I am; 

 bound too, in honesty to add, that the well-known cry of thei 

 Cuckoo has been declared by some naturalists, (though I thinkj 

 erroneously) to be common to both sexes. 4 Lastly, I will repeat! 

 that the female has that strange peculiarity of depositing herj 

 eggs singly in the nests of other species, which she selects as suit-j 

 able foster parents to her own young: a peculiarity not shared in! 

 by any others of our British birds, though by no means unknown! 

 among the feathered tribes of other countries, the Cowbird for! 

 example of America, 5 which belongs to the Starling tribe, several 

 species of the African Cuckoos and others. It is from this last ( 

 eccentricity of conduct, that so many strange and unlooked for! 

 habits of the Cuckoo take their rise : let us examine them one by 

 one ; but first let me earnestly protest against the unmeaning out- 



1 Jesse's Gleanings of Natural History, p. 125. 

 3 "Wood's Illustrated Natural History, vol. ii., p. 574. 

 Naturalist for 1852, p. 84. 

 4 Magazine Nat. Hist. vol. viii., p. 329—382. Naturalist for 1851, pp. 11, 172. 

 5 "Wilson's American Ornithology, vol. ii., p. 162. 



