242 
THE LADIES’ MAGAZINE OF GARDENING. 
The following birds also belong to the Picse division, viz.—- 
The Roller (Coracias garrula ).— This is a very beautiful middle- 
sized bird, having greenish-blue and red-brown plumage, and forked tail. 
Exceedingly rare in this country. 
The Cuckoo (Cuculus canorus). —These are well-known birds, as 
remarkable for their song, as for their economy in making other birds 
hatch and bring up their young. The cuckoo is a seasonal visitor, arriving 
between the twelfth and twentieth of April, and leaving soon after it 
has put its young to boarding-school. They are insectivorous them¬ 
selves ; and they seem to have an instinctive knowledge of the birds that 
choose such food as they seem to know will suit their own progeny. 
These nurses are mostly much smaller birds than the cuckoo herself; 
commonly the hedge-sparrow or wagtail are chosen; and though the 
young cuckoo soon outgrows the legitimate brood, and sometimes, it is 
said, actually throws them entirely out of the nest, the foster-mother is 
equally affectionate to the lubberly bantling so palmed upon her, as she 
is to her own lawful issue. Bringing up a young cuckoo also imposes 
a great additional labour on the foster-mother, as the young cuckoo 
is nearly full-grown before it can shift for itself; and throughout its 
nonage it follows its nurse, and claims for itself every fly or maggot 
its vigilant mother can catch. The young cuckoos do not leave the 
country till the month of October, and, like other migratory birds, 
instinctively wing their way to warmer climes. The female cuckoo, 
while ranging in quest of a suitable home for her egg, and which requires 
much more judgment than one would think she can possess, as she must 
lay her egg among those which are recently laid, otherwise the hatching 
would be irregular, and her design frustrated, does not seem to err in 
this point, instinct supplying the place of judgment; and then too, 
she is generally followed by one or more small birds, usually the Titlark, 
who seem to be anxious to drive her away. It is uncertain whether both 
sexes have the same call. We are pretty well sure that the female utters 
the notes which give their name; but w r e suspect that the male has a 
quickly-repeated note, of a very different sound from the other. We 
were long acquainted with this unusual call before we knew from whom 
it came. At last we found that it proceeded from the cuckoo. It is a loud, 
mellow, liquid note, produced in a tremulous shake through the throat, 
and which appears distended in the performance; the bird being always 
seated on the top of a tree when this note is sung. It has often been 
queried whether the cuckoo’s common note be innate, or acquired. 
Unlike other birds, the cuckoo knows no parents, nor can the young 
learn of the old; and it has been proved by the late Mr. Sweet, that 
