BIRD LIFE IN WASHINGTON 
75 
been watching for it for years, and had 
begun to fear I should never see it. 
It was the twenty-third of June. I had 
taken a long hot tramp and the birds had 
taught me nothing new. At last I saw a 
battered old Robin’s home in the thicket. 
For want of anything better to look at, I 
stopped to examine the ruin. When lo! 
above Robin’s nest about eleven feet from 
the ground, I saw a strange, long curved 
yellow bill. I held my breath for fear the 
bird would disappear in the denser 
thicket before it told me its name. 
It stood my gaze but a moment. Then, 
like a flash, it was out of sight. I clapped 
my hands with delight! It was our 
cuckoo! 
She sang from the thicket, “Coo, coo, 
coo, coo, coo, conk, couk.” No use to try 
to follow her, so I went away, but I came 
back in about an hour. She was on the 
nest again and by this time she had gained 
courage enough to try to decoy. She flew 
low in a semi-circle towards the deeper 
thicket exposing as she flew the beautiful 
rose of the under side of her wing. 
Cuckoo is reddish brown glossed with 
green. Her under parts are white. 
That home was not very well built. It 
was a rude, shallow nest of twigs loosely 
put together. There was a scanty lining 
of lichens. 
The eggs were pretty. There were three 
blue ones as large as a Partride egg. 
