little ado or apology as if you were in 
the next county. But make a false 
motion, and the bird glides away 
into the deeper foliage with an ease 
and grace born of long practice. 
Silken, silent, sinuous, are adjectives 
which you instinctively apply to this 
sober, sly bird, as he steals through 
the upper branches, scarcely 
seen, but not unseeing, to 
emerge at length from the op¬ 
posite side of the tree, and to 
dart away like a little brown 
arrow into some distant copse. 
A close study of the California 
Cuckoo’s breeding confirms the 
opinion gained elsewhere, that 
Coccyzus americanus is a bird of 
highly irregular habits. It nests in May—it nests in August. It builds 
a nest on a rush order and deposits three eggs therein all within the space 
of a week—it loafs and dodders for a month, so that fresh eggs and young 
are found together in a nest. It lays one egg and attends it devotedly— 
or five and deserts them. It erects a slovenly platform which would dis¬ 
grace a dove—or it builds a sturdy nest which would do credit to a 
thrasher. Or, again, it does not build at all, but uses instead a deserted 
nest of some other bird, Mourning Dove or Black-headed Grosbeak. 
And, lastly, it is a model of the home-keeping virtues, rearing and tend¬ 
ing its own as all virtuous parents should; or, yielding to the taint of 
cuckoo heredity, it inflicts its casual offspring upon a foster mother, and 
goes its way unheeding. This last trait is worthy of particular notice, 
for it is exceptional, and not very numerously recorded in the West. 
Indeed, 1 am unaware of more than two instances, both recorded by Mr. 
Antonin Jay: On July 12, 1903, his brother, the lamented Alphonse Jay, 
took a set of Cuckoo’s eggs from a Mourning Dove’s nest which contained 
three eggs of the Cuckoo and one of the Dove; and again on July 14, 1907, 
he found a nest of the House Finch which held one egg of the Cuckoo 
and two of the rightful owner. 
As a locally exceptional instance, Mr. Antonin Jay records the find¬ 
ing, on May 10, 1901, of a nest which contained three newly hatched 
but dead young of the Cuckoo, and two eggs of the Mourning Dove well 
advanced in incubation. The Dove was sitting when the nest was found, 
and the construction of the nest appeared to point to the Dove as the 
The California Cuckoo 
Taken in Los Angeles County Photo by Antonin Jay 
BIG ENOUGH TO KOOK 
1151 
