the nest, but without avail. The next day a neighbouring farmer
told me that he had something to shew me, which proved to be a
young Cuckoo in the nest of a Hedge-Sparrow, and the place where
the nest was situated was but a very short distance from the spot where
the old Cuckoo had attracted my attention in the manner described.'
I must here observe that the statement of Mr. McTntosh is strongly
confirmed by that of the Rev. Mr. Stafford, communicated by Pennant
to the Hon. Daines Harrington, and recorded by Derham in a manuscript
paper on Instinct. Walking in Glossop Dale, in the Peak of
1 )erbyshire, he disturbed a ('uckoo from a nest in which were two
young one>, 'and very frequently, for many days, beheld the old
Cuckoo feed there her young ones.' Probably only one of them was
her own veritable offspring, and it is equally probable that she did
not know which was which. Certain it is that such a statement as
this of a fact, repeatedly witnessed, cannot be lightly received by
an impartial and nnwarped judgment. But it is further corroborated
by another recorded instance. The Rev. Mr. WHmot, of Morley,
near Derby, wrote Dr. Darwin word of the occurrence of a similar
fact:—In the month of July 1792, he was attending some labourers
on a farm, when one of them told him that he had observed a bird
'exactly like a Cuckoo' sitting upon a nest. This it must be observed
is a third evidence, all three deponents being perfectly unprejudiced
and unbiassed. The Rev. Mr. Wilrnot proceeds:—' He took me to
the spot; it was in an open fallow ground. The bird was upon the
nest; 1 stood and observed her some lime, and was perfectly satisfied
it was a Cuckoo In the nest.. . .1 observed three eggs. As I had
labourers constantly at work in that field, I went thither every day,
and always looked if the bird was there, but did not disturb it for
seven or eight days, when I was tempted to drive it from the nest;
and found two young ones that appeared to have been hatched for
some days, but there was no appearance of the third egg.' This
tact also is in some degree confirmatory. The other egg may have
been that of the original framcr of the nest, for we need not
suppose with Dr. Fleming, from the previous instance, that the
Cuckoo sometimes makes a nest for herself. 'I then mentioned this
extraordinary circumstance, for such I thought it, to Mr. and Mrs.
Holyoake, of Bidford Grange. Warwickshire, and to Miss M. Willes,
who were on a visit at my house, and who all went to see it,*—
three more witnesses let it be observed. ' Very lately I reminded
Mr. Holyoake of it, who told me he had a perfect recollection of
the whole, and that considering it a curiosity, he walked to look
at it several times, and u as perfectly satisfied as to its being a
Cuckoo.' The indigestible part of the food of the Cuckoo is cast
up, as in the case of the Hawks, in pellets.
The note of the Cuckoo, uttered both when flying and perched in
trees, is expressed by its name. It is often however, varied from
the plain 'cuckoo,' to a quicker 'cuckoo; cuckoo; cuc-cuc-koo.* Both
the male and female birds utter it, but the latter, it may be, only
seldom; though I am inclined to think that it is equally common to
both. Thev have besides another soft note, rendered by the syllables
'cole, cule,* uttered rapidly, and continually repeated several times;
another exclamation of anger, and another more like the bark of a
little dog: the young bird has a plaintive chirp. When making love
in the spring, they give utterance to a small variety of curious
croaking, chuckling, chucking notes. The female, as I imagine it to
be, has also a very different note, which I can best liken, so at least
I did most carefully some years ago, when I heard it, to the words
' witchet-witchct-watchet.' This note, preceded immediately by the
ordinary ' cuckoo,' I heard myself most distinctly uttered from the
throat of one and the same individual bird, flying only a few yards
from me, over an open field, so that there could be no possibility of
any mistake; and this undoubted fact may possibly suffice to set at
rest the unfounded supposition that the female Cuckoo does not cry
' cuckoo;' for I have not yet heard it theorized that the male bird
utters the note iu question, which has been described as a 'harsh
chatter.' The Italian proverb says, 'i fatti sono maschii, le parole
femine1—' Facts are masculine, talk is feminine:' one is worth a
hundred baseless fancies.
That both the male and female utter the word 'cuckoo,' is also
thought by Mr. Yarrell, and most decidedly maintained by Mr. Blyth,
who gives in the 'Magazine of Natural History,' vol. via., page 329,
one unquestionable instance of a female having been shot while in
the act of repeating the well-known note. The Cuckoo has been
heard singing its song at night, near Ryde, in the Isle of Wight,
by T. Bell Salter, Esq., at nine, ten, and eleven o'clock; and on one
occasion it was continued, as he was informed, till two o'clock in
the morning. Another has been heard to commence its song at a
quarter-past two, another at half-past two, iu moonlight, and another
;u hall-past three. At times, and especially, it is said, in warm
weather, it sings all through the night, even though there be no moon.
' In the pairing season, the Cuckoo begins its call soon after midnight,
and repeats it more than a hundred times in succession, without
changing its perch; after which it rests for a time, recommences, and
then again rests, and thus continues until the morning light.' A young
VOL. n. !