THE CUCKOO.

THE common cuckoo is a bird of passage, and less at home here than any other bird. It was thus addressed by Wordsworth :—

"O blithe new-comer! I have heard,

I hear thee, and rejoice:

O, Cuckoo! shall I call thee bird,
Or, but a wandering voice?

While I am lying on the grass,

Thy twofold shout I hear,

That seems to fill the whole air's space

As loud far off as near.

Though babbling only to the vale

Of sunshine and of flowers,

Thou bringest unto me a tale

Of visionary hours.

Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring;

Ev'n yet thou art to me

No bird; but an invisible thing

A voice, a mystery!

The same whom, in my schoolboy days,

I listened to; that cry

Which made me look a thousand ways,
In tree, and bush, and sky.

To seek thee did I often rove

Through woods and on the green;
And thou wert still a hope, a love-
Still long'd for, never seen.

And I can listen to thee yet,
Can lie upon the plain,
And listen, till I do beget

That golden time again."

The cuckoo visits this country about the middle of April, and tarries with us about four months. Its course has been marked in the following couplets:

"In April,

Come he will.

In May,

He sings all day.

In June,

He alters his tune.

In July,

He prepares to fly.

In August,

Go he must."

The egg of the cuckoo is laid in the nests of other birds, many of which might easily be mentioned; but it appears to prefer those of the meadow pipit, the hedge warbler, and the pied wagtail. Should a second egg be found in a nest, it is thought to be laid by a second cuckoo. But, whatever may be the nest in which the

G

young bird is hatched, it is generally found there entirely alone, its foster-mother attending most assiduously to its wants. Here there are several circumstances to

which Dr. Jenner gave particular attention.

It was found that the small birds, in the nests of which the cuckoo commonly deposits her egg, take four or five days in laying them, and that generally after two or three of these are laid, she accomplishes her purpose. As the cuckoo is commonly hatched first, the remaining eggs, and young, if any, are turned out of the nest, and are left to perish. This, strange to say, the intruder effects, being generally strong enough for the task the day after it is hatched, thus securing to itself the whole provision brought by the old birds. The following is an extract from Dr. Jenner's paper, published in the Transactions of the Royal Society :

"Two cuckoos and a hedge-sparrow were hatched in the same nest this morning: one hedge-sparrow's egg remained unhatched. In a few hours after, a contest began between the cuckoos for the possession of the nest, which continued undetermined till the next afternoon; when one of them, which was somewhat superior in size, turned out the other, together with the young hedge-sparrow and the egg. This contest was very remarkable. The combatants alternately appeared to

have the advantage, as each carried the other several times to the top of the nest, and then sunk down again, oppressed by the weight of its burden; till, at length, after various efforts, the strongest prevailed, and was afterwards brought up by the hedge-sparrows.

the

"It is wonderful to see the extraordinary exertions of

young cuckoo, when it is two or three days old, if a bird be put into the nest with it that is too weighty for it to lift out. In this state it seems ever restless and uneasy. But this disposition for turning out its companions begins to decline from the time it is two or three till it is about twelve days old, when, as far as I have hitherto seen, it ceases. Indeed, the disposition for throwing out the egg appears to cease in a few days sooner ; for I have frequently seen the young cuckoo, after it had been hatched nine or ten days, remove a nestling that had been placed in the nest with it, when it suffered an egg, put there at the same time, to remain unmolested. The singularity of its shape is well adapted to these purposes; for, different from other birds, its back from the shoulders downwards is very broad, with a considerable depression in the middle. This depression seems formed by nature for the design of giving a more secure lodgment to an egg, or a young bird, when the young cuckoo is employed in removing either

of them from the nest. When it is about twelve days old, this cavity is quite filled up, and then the back assumes the shape of nestling birds in general."

The substances found inthe stomach of young cuckoos are various, depending upon the species of bird by which they are fed. They consist of flies, beetles, caterpillars, grasshoppers, and small snails. When fed by any of the finches, which are rather vegetable feeders, they are supplied with young wheat, small vetches, tender shoots of grass, and seeds. Adult cuckoos seem more partial to hairy caterpillars. The young are frequently found in a nest in a hedge-row, by their almost incessant querulous note, which appears to be a call for food; and they are voracious feeders. The young are sometimes, by great care, kept alive in confinement over the first winter, but seldom survive long afterwards. The best food for them is raw beef chopped small, and mixed with the yolk of an egg.

"To what cause then," says Dr. Jenner, "may we attribute the singularities of the cuckoo? May they not be owing to the following circumstances? The short residence this bird is allowed to make in the country where it is destined to propagate its species, and the call that nature has upon it, during that short residence, to produce a numerous progeny. The cuckoo's first