On the other hand, if the young shonld survive until the Cuckoo has gained sufficient strength, I have no 
doubt it would, as Dr. Jenner and others have asserted, have both the disposition and the power to effect 
the ejectment ; but I do not believe it has this power on the third day after being hatched ; yet it is on that 
day that I have always found the Cuckoo the sole occupier of the nest. The Rev. C. A. Jolnis states that 
a pair of Meadow-Pipits were positively seen to throw out their own young ones to make room for 
the intruder. The growth of the usurper is so rapid after the destruction of his companions has secured 
the entire supply of food to himself, that he soon fills the nest. He has now the entire attention of the birds 
by whom he was incubated ; and most industriously do they work to keep him in health and condition. At the 
end of a week or ten days, his size and appearance is very similar to that of a moderate-sized toad ; at this 
time his small, dull, unmeaning eye enables him to discern the approach of an intruder, against whom he 
manifests his displeasure by swelling out his body and opening his wide mouth. After this, his feathers make 
their appearance, and by the eighteenth day he has the power of hopping in and ont of the nest ; but he 
seldom leaves it until his pinions are sufficiently developed to enable him to fly to a branch in some obscure 
part of a tree, where he sits from day to day, receiving contributions from his fosterparents and from other 
birds also: here again its power of fascination is brought into play. “A young Cuckoo which had been 
taken from the nest, and was being reared by hand, escaped from confinement. Having one of its wings 
cut, it could not fly, but was found again, at the expiration of a month, within a few fields of the house 
where it was reared, and several little wild birds were in the act of feeding it. The Bishop of Noi'wich, in 
his ‘ Familiar History of Birds,’ mentions two instances in which a young Cuckoo in captivity was fed by a 
young Thrush which had only just learned to feed itself.” (‘ British Birds in their Haunts,’ by the Rev. C. 
A. Johns.) 
How wonderfully solicitous are the little birds for its welfare, and with what spirit do the fosterparents 
defend their nurtured Cuckoo! If its removal be attempted, they display the greatest uneasiness. Wagtails 
will even fly in the face of the person who thus teases them ; and if it be returned to them, they will evince 
their joy by fondling and dancing around it, leaping over its back, and exhibiting many other demonstrations 
of delight. Yet in a few days their charge will wing his way to the leafy branch of some tree in the forest, 
and there sit uttering most strange, piercing, bat-like notes, varied occasionally by others resembling the 
syllables chat-chat. 
As some of my readers may consider that I have not sufficiently stated whence the Cuckoo comes in spring, 
and whither it goes in autumn, I may state that those individuals which frequent Britain in summer, spend 
their winters in the western portion of Africa, and that they follow the little spring birds in their migrations 
to and from that country. The British Islands, however, are by no means the only parts in which the 
Cuckoo spends its summer and performs its peculiar functions ; -the whole of Europe, from south to north, 
is alike visited by it, and even within the Arctic circle its call serenades the ear. It is also equally abun- 
dant in every part of Asia, visiting the temperate and northern portions in summer, and retiring southwards 
at the opposite season ; and thus India, Southern China, Persia, Arabia, and Egypt are countries of 
whose fauna it forms a part. The Cuckoos have always appeared to me to constitute a part of a large 
but not yet clearly defined group of birds, in which the Woodpeckers and Wrynecks must be included : these, 
as well as the Cuckoos, are very reptile-like in many of their actions and economy. Their brilliantly 
coloured eyes, the darting aetion of their lengthened tongues, their mode of progression on the boles of the 
trees, the peculiar colour of their plumage, particularly of the Wrynecks and Woodpeckers, their extra- 
ordinary snake-like contortions, and other indescribable actions, all point to their similarity. 
A young Cuckoo, taken from the nest of a Wagtail at Formosa, exhibited many strange actions, which 
very strongly reminded me of a Rattlesnake. If the hand was put towards it, it raised itself on its legs, 
protruded its neck, puffed out its feathers, and threw its head forward with a quick and determined stroke, 
precisely like a Snake or Viper, struck the hand with the open mouth just as a Snake would do, and 
immediately drew the head back in readiness for another stroke. On the second day after it was taken, 
the bird was sufficiently reconciled to me and my daughter to take small pieces of raw beef and mutton 
and caterpillars from the hand, but continued to utter its piercing shriek whenever we approached it. Does 
not this peculiar electrifying shriek attract the attention of the smaller birds when it requires food ? A 
delicate ear will hear this sound at the distance of thirty or forty yards ; and it is probably heard by the smaller 
birds at a still greater distance. On the 14th of June I gave the bird to Mrs. Noble, of Berry Hill, who 
attended to it with the utmost care, and succeeded in rearing it until it could feed itself ; at length the 
period of migration arrived, when the impulse to depart became so strong, that it killed itself by flying 
against the top of its cage, in one of those paroxysms which occur with all migrants under restraint. 
I am indebted to John Gatcombe, Esq., for the following interesting account of the habits of a young 
Cuckoo, drawn up by Thomas Archer Briggs, Esq., of Plymouth, who succeeded in keeping it alive for more 
than twelve months, when it was accidentally killed — 
“On the 26th of June, 1858, I obtained a young Cuckoo from a labourer. From the first it was fierce 
and pugnacious. It was fed principally upon raw and dressed meat, and a paste composed of the yelk of 
eggs and soaked bread; and about the beginning of the second week in July it was able both to fly and to 
