197. N u c i f u a g a c a r y o c a t a c t e s
N u t c r a c k e r .
Vol. III. Pl. LXV.
198. N u c i f r a g a c a r y o c a t a c t e s ...........................................................................................................Vol. III. PI. LXVI.
N u t c r a c k e r (young).
Indigenous In most o f the mountainous and woody countries o f E u ro p e; breeds abundantly in Switzerland.
In England it can only be considered an accidental visitor. Mr. Harting, in bis * Handbook o f British
Birds,’ enumerates about twenty instances o f its occurrence here from the date Pennant wrote, 1753, to
within a few years o f the present time, 1872; still these visits can only be regarded as accidental.
Family CUCULIDiE.
The members of this great family o f birds are rendered especially remarkable and interesting from the
circumstance o f the greater number o f them having parasitic habits. The entire family comprises about two
hundred species, which are subdivided into several subfamilies and many genera. They are universally
dispersed over the temperate portions o f the g lo b e ; but not more than a fourth p art o f the whole number
are found in America.
Genus C u c u l u s .
The members of this genus, restricted to the true Cuckoos, a re tolerably numerous. One species inhabits
E u ro p e ; and there are others in India, China, Java, Sumatra, the islands o f the Indian archipelago, and
Australia ; they are also well represented in Africa.
199. C u c u l u s c a n o r u s y 0l HI PI LXVII
C ommon C uckoo.
200. Cocunus c a n o k o s ....................................................................................................................................................... m p , L x v m
Com m o n C u c k o o (young).
The Common Cuckoo is a true migrant, coming to us from the south in May, and departing again in
September, the young being frequently left behind to a later period of the year.
I now find that the opinion ventured in my account of this species as to the impossibility o f the young
Cuckoo ejecting the young o f its foster-parents a t the early age o f three o r four days is erroneous ; for a lady
o f undoubted veracity and considerable ability as an observer o f nature and as an artist has actually seen
the act performed, and has illustrated her statement o f the fact by a sketch taken at the time, a tracing o f
which has been kindly sent to me by the Duke o f Argyll, and I have considered it o f sufficient interest to
reproduce here in a woodcut. The sketch was accompanied by Mrs. Blackburn’s account of the circumstance
as it came under her observation— which is here given from No. 124 o f ‘ Nature,’ a weekly illustrated
journal o f science.
“ Several well-known naturalists who have seen my sketch from life o f the young Cuckoo ejecting the
young Pipit (opposite p. 22 o f the little versified tale o f mine) * have expressed a wish that the details of my
observations o f the scene should be published. I therefore send you the facts, though the sketch itself
seems to me to be the only important addition I have made to the admirably accurate description given by
Dr. Jenner in his letter to John Hunter, which is printed in the * Philosophical Transactions ’ for 1788
(vol. lxxviii. pp. 225, 226), and which I have read with pleasure since putting down my own notes.
“ The nest (which we watched last June, after finding the Cuckoo’s egg in it) was that of the common
Meadow-Pipit (Titlark, Moss-cheeper), and had two Pipit’s eggs besides that of the Cuckoo. It was below
a heather bush, on the declivity o f a low abrupt bank on a Highland hill-side in Moidart.
“ At one visit the Pipits were found to be hatched, but not the Cuckoo. At the next visit, which was
after an interval o f forty-eight hours, we found the young Cuckoo alone in the nest, and both the young
Pipits lying down the bank, about ten inches from the margin of the nest, but quite lively after being
warmed in the hand. They were replaced in the nest beside o f the Cuckoo, which struggled1 about till it
got its back under one o f them, when it climbed backwards directly up the open side o f the nest, and
hitched the Pipit from its back on to the edge. I t then stood quite upright on its legs, which were
straddled wide apart, with the claws firmly fixed hallway down the inside o f the nest, among the interlacing
fibres o f which the nest was woven ; and, stretching its wings apart and backwards, it elbowed the Pipit
fairly over the margin so far that its struggles took it down the bank instead o f back into the nest.
* ‘ The Pipits,’ illustrated by Mrs. Hugh Blackburn. Glasgow: Maclehose, 1872.