CoGcyzus 
ery throphthalmus . 
lobster Lake, Piscataquis Co., Maine. 
1399. Another incident which interested no greatly was the 
!3ept.24. finding of a Cuckoo (black-billed) in the waters, of Lobster 
Lake, September 24th, alive and attempting to swim with its 
wings; but rapidly weakening and numb with cold or hunger. 
The night of Sept .2Srd had been calm but bitterly cold, with 
1/2 inch of ice in our water pails. At daybreak of the 24th 
a violent southerly gale sprang up .which raged furiously all 
day. At about noon my companions called to me that they had 
seen a bird launch itself from a tree into the lake. In 
about five minutes we had the bird in our hands. I found it 
to be a black-billed cuckoo without any white on the tail and 
with one tail-feather grown only to half-length, otherwise 
normal and of large size. The bird was numb, unable to strug- 
gle, and blinking its eyes. I carried it to camp, warmed it 
in a box before a big fire, photographed it (out of focus as 
it turned out), and for two hours tried to feed it. It siezed 
raw partridge-slivers but rejected them. It ignored common 
flies, "winged ants, an orange-colored spider and a yellowish 
j poplar grub. And beyond these, the most painstaking search 
failed to find a living insect in the region. In view of the 
bird's evident and increasing terror and its refusal to eat, 
I let it go. It -was fairly vigorous, but could not fly. But 
its progress on foot with occasional fluttering w as fairly 
rapid. I suppose this cuckoo will inevitably be starving; 
