78 
"O! could I fly, I'd fly with thee; 
We'd make, with social wing, 
Our annual visit o^er the globe, I 
Companions of the spring." 
The male Cuckow measures nearly fif- 
teen inches in length, and two feet one 
inch in the expansion of its wings. 
The female measures fourteen inches in 
length, and in general differs from the 
other sex in the neck and breast being of 
a tawnyish brown, barred with dusky, and 
the covertsof the wings marked with ferru- 
ginous spots; the markings on the tail and 
quill-feathers much like those of the male, 
only the edges of the spots are inclining to 
reddish brown, the legs of both sexes are 
short and yellow. 
We think it probable that the young do 
not entirely throw off their nestling- 
feathers till the second year's moulting, 
as we have seen specimens wherein some 
of the quill-feathers and the greater 
coverts impending them were brown and 
jferruginous. 
The colours in the plumage of the 
young of this species does not in the least 
