Cuckoos in May. 
145 
An odd Grey-winged Ouzel has mated with a hen 
Blackljird and a clutch of eggs (four, one of which has been 
brokenj are being closely incubated. The Blackbird previous 
to laying was extremely wild and dashed about whenever the 
avairy was entered; now she still sits closely even when her nest 
is nearly approached. 
A Zebra Finch has mated with an aged Parson hinch and 
they are busy constructing a home. 
A pair of Indian (ireen-wing Doves will insist upon 
nesting on the floor of their shelter, as they did last year and 
failed to rear ,two eggs have been laid which soon disappeared. 
Further reports indicate that in various aviaries a fair 
number of young Budgerigars, Cockateels and Zebra Fi'iches 
are on the wing. 
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Cuchoos in May. 
THEIR SONG AND OFFSPRING. From a Correspondent 
Reprinted from " The Times,"' zjv/iS ; cutting per Rev. G. H. Raynor, M. A. — Ed 
Cuckoos sing loudest and longest in May, when their full numbers have assem- 
bled in this country, and before their voices yet break and babble, except in 
moments of utmost excitement. May hringa waimer twilights and earlier dawns ; 
and in districts where cuckoos are numerous, for human sleepers the hours when they 
do not sing are too few. There vociferation is often at its height in the early morn- 
ing, when, perched on some sloping bough of oak or elm, they will call 60 or 80 
times without a break. And in these solitary hours, before man has arisen to claim 
his own, they draw much nearer to houses than they venture later in the day. 
Thick woods are not their favourite home, nor yet the dense green copses beloved 
of the nightingale. They prefer an open but well timbeied pasture country ; and they 
are fond of the fringes of the moors, where the maybushes stand gnarled and few. 
Like many other birds, they provoke one another to sing in rivalry ; and six cuckoos 
in a parish make much moie than six times the noise of one. They have more than 
the usual incentive for such emulation. So far from the interference of cuckoos with 
other bird's households being due to wanton naughtiness — as the older critics of their 
conduct generally assumed — it is closely bound up with a deep-seated misadjustment 
in their own affairs. Cocks outnumber hens among cuckoos by something like five 
or six to one ; and the fury of their shouting is an index of the rivalry induced by this 
disproportion So far as the male cuckoo is concerned, he may be said to be an are 
dent champion Oi monogamy. He does his utmost to secure a single wife ; though 
it may be his fate to be restricted to a fifth or a sixth of one. Who can blame him 
