CUCKOO 
The cuckoo of Europe is famous for its call, which in many regions is an 
invariable accompaniment of spring. This gentle, dove-like bird is more 
frequently heard than seen. Usually one male bird sings alone, but some¬ 
times a group of males will perform together, creating a “cuckoo sym¬ 
phony.” Less striking are the notes of the American yellow-billed cuckoo. 
The reason for the cuckoo’s impressive invisibility is that it spends the 
greater part of its time hidden away among the leaves, where it eats cater¬ 
pillars. Its effectiveness in destroying these insect pests is shown by the 
finding of as many as fifty of them in the stomach of a dead bird. On the 
wing the cuckoo slips through the trees swiftly and noiselessly. It can be 
seen with the greatest difficulty. 
Male cuckoos are more numerous than females, and the females are 
not faithful mates. Though they do build nests—platforms of sticks and 
grass—these birds are careless and indifferent parents. Some species lay 
their eggs in the nests of robins, sparrows, reed-warblers and other birds, 
who hatch them out and rear the resulting chicks. The young cuckoos turn 
out to be just as unsocial as their parents, for when about thirty hours old, 
they try, often with success, to eject the “legitimate” chicks and eggs from 
their adoptive nest. This trait persists for about twelve days. 
Birds of some species, such as the yellow-billed cuckoo, will not often 
lay their eggs in the nests of other birds, but are said to occasionally smuggle 
an egg into the nest of another cuckoo. This cuckoo lays from three to five 
greenish-blue eggs, often at such wide intervals that a nest may contain 
fresh eggs and young birds at the same time. 
Some cuckoos are migratory, departing south from August through the 
fall, and flying as far as the West Indies, Argentina, or, in the Eastern 
Hemisphere, from Europe to South Africa; and returning with the spring. 
They are frequently mistaken for hawks by other birds and by peas¬ 
ants. Swarms of small birds will mob a cuckoo, taking it for their dreaded 
enemy, while peasants shoot it in the same belief. 
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