MR. J. H. GURNEY ON THE ECONOMY OF TIJE CUCKOO. 377 
the same tastes as one reared by a Thrush may well be doubted 
(cf Gilbert White, letter iv. to Barrington), and there is only one 
recorded instance of a foster-parent transmitting the intonation of 
its song to a Cuckoo, however it may transmit its appetite. The 
song of “ („’uck — oo” is always the same, and Colonel Butler tells 
me the female’s bubbling cry is to his ear exactly like the Indian 
Koel’s, but Eudynamis is a very aberrant Cuckoo. We have it on 
the authority of the poets that for GOO years the Cuckoo has told 
its name to the hills exactly in the strain it does now, — Cuccu, 
Cuccu, — the noisiest and hence the most noticed of migrants. 
Few country sights are more entertaining to any of us, and yet 
ridiculous, than to see a tiny Titlark standing on the back of a big, 
uncouth Cuckoo to feed it. The Cuckoo turns back its great head 
for the expected lama, or sometimes a young Cuckoo may be seen 
to half spread its wings for the clumsier Hedge Sparrow, which uses 
them as a ladder. Any one seeing a Hedge Sparrow thus feeding 
a Cuckoo might think with the Fool in ‘ King Lear,’ that it would 
bite off its head. Long after they have left the nest, Cuckoos keep 
up infantine manners, vaguely opening and shutting their yellow 
months, impatiently shaking their wings and uttering a querulous 
cry, always complaining that they are not enough attended to, 
and if it were not for these artifices they would soon be left to die ; 
it has been said that in confinement a young Cuckoo will never pick 
up its own food, but I have seen one do so. No matter who its foster- 
parents are, the lusty toad-like offspring, in many cases a murderer, 
is their joy and delight, and very soon fills the cradle. From this, 
if it be a Keed Warbler's nest, it must surely run great risk of 
ejection in a high wind, though I never knew one thrown out. 
Although it has originated from such a small egg it receives and 
requires the food of five birds, and grows so vigorously as to soon 
outgrow its domicile. If undisturbed, a young Cuckoo remains in, 
or rather on, its nest, a long time before it is ripe for leaving, and if 
frightened it will then, the first time of using its wings, have the 
strength to fly thirty or forty yards. Now capable of supporting 
itself, it nevertheless prefers to be fed by other birds, perhaps its 
foster-parents, perhaps others, more or less to the eve of its departure, 
indolently to us it seems, but in reality only following the dictates 
of nature. 
Two young Cuckoos in one nest is an event very rarely witnessed, 
