Yellow-hilled Cuckoo 
207 
destructive gypsy moth is another favourite 
dainty. 
Perhaps you have heard that the cuckoo, 
like the naughty cowbird, builds no nest and 
lays its eggs in other birds’ cradles? This is 
true only of the European cuckoo. Its Ameri- 
can cousin makes a poor apology for a nest, it 
is true, merely a loose bundle or platform of 
sticks, as fiimsily put together as a dove’s 
nest. The greenish-blue eggs or the naked 
babies must certainly fall through, one would 
think. Still it is all the cuckoos’ own, and they 
are proud of it. But so sensitive and fearful 
are they when a human visitor inspects their 
nursery that they will usually desert it, never 
to return, if you touch it, so beware of peep- 
ing! 
When the skinny cuckoo babies are a few 
days old, blue pin-feathers begin to appear, and 
presently their bodies are stuck full of fine, 
sharply pointed quills like a well-stocked pin 
cushion. Porcupine babies you might think 
them now. But presto! every pin -feather 
suddenly fluffs out the day before the youngsters 
leave the nest, and they are clothed in a suit of 
soft feathers like their parents. In a few 
months young cuckoos, hatched as far north as 
New England and Canada or even Labrador, 
are strong enough to fly to Central or South 
America to spend the winter. 
