OF BIRDS* 
19 7 
are white, crossed with wavy lines of black; the tail con- 
sists oi ten feathers;- — the two middle ones black, with 
white tips;— the others dusky, and marked with alternate 
spots of white on each side of the shaft. The legs are 
of a yellow colour, and the claws white. Its principal 
food consists of flesh and insects. 
The female cuckoo, soon after her arrival at her sum- 
mer quarters, prepares to forward the grand design of 
Nature in the propagation of her kind: unlike all other 
birds, however, she neither provides a nest, nor betrays 
the least solicitude for the production of her young; but 
deposits her solitary egg in the nest of some other bird, 
and most generally in that of the hedge sparrow; this in- 
trusion often occasions some disorder, for the hedge- 
sparrow, at intervals, while she is sitting, not only throws 
out some of her own eggs, but sometimes injures them 
in such a manner that they become addled: so that it fre- 
quently happens that not more than two or three of the 
parent bird*s eggs are hatched; but it has never been ob- 
served that the egg of the cuckoo has either been thrown 
out or injured. When the hedge sparrow has set her 
usual time, and disengaged the young cuckoo and some 
of her own offspring from the shell, her own young ones 
and any of her eggs that remain unhatched, are turned 
out of the nest. 
The young bird generally continues three weeks in the 
nest before it flies; and the foster parents feed it more 
than five weeks after this period. Hence it appears, that 
if a cuckoo were ready with an egg much sooner than, 
the time pointed out, not a single nestling, even of the 
earliest, would be fit to provide for itself, before its pa- 
rent would be instinctively directed to seek a new resi- 
dence, and be thus compelled to abandon its offspring; 
for the cuckoos take their leave the first week in July. 
Redwing. (PL 31.) This bird is not more than eight 
inches in length. The bill is of a dark brown colour; 
eyes deep hazel; the plumage in general is similar to that 
of the thrush, but a white streak over the eye distin- 
guishes it from that bird; the belly is not quite so much 
spotted, and the sides of the body and the feathers under 
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