CURLEW. 123 



seen by Mr. Stafford, belonged not to the Cuckoo, but the night-jar 

 (JXyctichelidon Europceus, Rennie.) — " With due deference," says 

 Jenner, " to Dr. Darwin, I am inclined to think that the opinion he set 

 forth respecting the training of Cuckoos was taken up hastily ; and that 

 the birds which his friend saw feeding their nestlings were not Cuckoos, 

 but goat-suckers, whose mode of nestling corresponds with the relation 

 given, and whose appearance might be mistaken for them by one not 

 perfectly conversant with the plumage, and the general appearance of 

 Cuckoos when on the wing." 1 Such mistakes may readily be committed, 

 even by naturalists of experience, from the young Cuckoo being so un- 

 like the full-grown bird. Block, 2 as well as Sanders, 3 and Sepp, 4 have 

 mistaken the egg, and figured the large oval white marbled with 

 brown egg of the night-jar for that of the Cuckoo, which is always 

 small, rounded, and greenish, yellowish, bluish, or greyish white, and 

 always blotched, not marbled, with olive or ash colour, being about the 

 size of a house sparrow's and very like it in colour, while the night-jar's 

 egg is larger than a blackbird's. 5 The young of the night-jar does not 

 differ from the full-grown bird; but the Cuckoo does not attain its 

 mature plumage till the third year; and, instead of the greyish lead 

 blue of the old birds, is brown, with numerous spots and cross streaks 

 of a reddish rust colour, very similar to the markings of the night -jar. 

 The two birds, when fall grown, are also precisely of the same size, 

 namely, ten inches and a half in length. 6 The similarity, then, I 

 think, is tolerably complete. 



The assertion of Aristotle, that the Cuckoo sometimes builds among 

 broken rocks and on high mountains, 7 and a similar remark quoted 

 from Niphus by Gesner, 8 are no more to be trusted than his story of 

 the redbreast being annually changed 9 into a red start; or of the Cuckoo 

 itself being nothing but a metamorphosed sparrow-hawk, while, imme- 

 diately after this miraculous change, it is so weak, that the kite is so 

 obliging as to carry it on its back !!-! So grossly are the commonest 

 facts misrepresented, when not observed with scrupulous accuracy.* 



CUCKOO'S MATE.— A name for the Wryneck. 



CUCULIDiE (Leach.) — * Cuckoos, a group very improperly ar- 

 ranged under the Climbers, (Scansores, Auctores,) as Cuckoos do 

 not climb.* 



1 Jenner, Phil. Trans. 1R24, p. 42. 2 Besc. der Berlin, Gess. iv. t. 18. fig. 1. 

 3 Naturf. xiv. s. 49. 4 Sepp. Nederl. Vog. ii. p. 117. 



5 Lath. Gen. Hist, of Birds, iii. p. 261. 

 6 Temm. Man. p. 382. 437. 7 Aristotle, Hist. Anim. vi. p. 1. 



8 Gesner, de Avibus, iii. 9 Pliny, .'Elian, Salerne, &c. 



