4 
PICARIAN BIRDS. 
only evidenced by its colour and form but by its mode of flight, and wInch is so 
marked that the bird is always mobbed by smaller birds, as if it was really a hawk. 
Its colour is grey above and white below, regularly barred with black like a 
hawk, while the throat is buff. It has also long thigh feathers, like those of an 
accipitrine bird, so that with its yellow eye the resemblance is complete, and when 
flying it is by no means easy to tell at the first glance whether it is a cuckoo 01 a. 
hawk in the air. An accustomed eye may at last detect the more elongated look 
of the head, owing to the long bill of the cuckoo, whereas a hawk in flight often 
looks as if it had no bill at all, so blunt is the aspect of a hawk’s head when seen 
common cuckoo (| nat. size). 
at a little distance. The interest in the history of the cuckoo is, however, con¬ 
centrated on its nesting-habits, and the success with which it imposes on other 
birds in getting them to rear its young. There can scarcely be any doubt that 
the number of males considerably exceeds that of the females, and some naturalists 
not only speak of the species as polyandrous, but declare that the female bird does 
all the courting. Certain it is that the presence of a female cuckoo excites the 
interest of more than one male, as may be seen in spring-time by those who know 
how to detect what has been well-described as the “ water-bubbling ” note of the 
female cuckoo, which Brehm renders as kwik-wik-wik, and Seebohm as kwow-ow- 
ow-ow. The female, on giving utterance to this note, is answered at once by 
every male in the neighbourhood, and they lose no time in flying towards the tree 
