194 
FRANCIS H. HERRTCK 
celebrated from antiquity, are on the whole shy and retiring, 
frequenting copses, thickets, and bush-grown pastures, near to 
water, where their insect prey abounds. With rapid flight they, 
glide stealthily and noiselessly about, ''often resting motionless as 
statues for a long time." They are active all night, and while 
in camp at Lovell, Me., August 7, 1909, I heard the call, koo- 
kukl koo-kuk! koo-koo-kuk! from this bird at intervals from 9 p.m. 
until 12.30 a.m., long after the whippoorwills had rested. Gerald 
Thayer has^^ observed at Mt. Monadnock, N. H., not only the 
usual nocturnal activity as shown by their responsive kow-kow 
note, but what seemed to be a regular practice, even on the dark- 
est nights, of flying high, possibly as high as four hundred or five 
hundred feet, and uttering a series of rolling guttural notes, re- 
sembling their usual alarm, even when rising above the ridges 
of the mountain at an elevation of 3,000 feet. 
Though frequently denied, it is undoubtedly true that these 
cuckoos destroy many eggs and young of other birds, and I will 
mention a case in point. Twice (July 2, and 3, 1907) at my home 
in the country, near Cleveland, Ohio, I have seen a black-billed 
cuckoo, chased by robins from an elm tree, in which these birds 
were known to have a nest, and bearing in its bill each time what 
looked like a small and very immature nestling. These robins, 
sounding their shrillest alarms, and darting at the retreating 
cuckoo, followed it for nearly a quarter of a mile. Later the same 
season (July 18), a bird answering to the description of this cuckoo 
was seen near the same spot flying off with an egg in its bill, this 
egg being undoubtedly pierced. 
The black-bill nests from late May to late August, laying from 
3 to 7 eggs to the litter, and probably sometimes produces two 
broods in a season; it certainly does so, when upon the disturb- 
ance or destruction of its eggs, it abandons a nest. A nest has 
been taken as early as May 7th, in Mount Carmel, 111., and as 
late as September 10th, at Lockport, N. Y., where the frosts 
had been' severe enough to destroy vegetables on the two pre- 
23 Thayer, Gerald H. Mystery of the black-billed cuckoo. Bird-lore, vol. 5, 
pp. 143-145. 1903. 
