Spanish haunts, common in New Castile, La Mancha,
and certain parts of Estremadura and Andalucia; whilst
in the eastern provinces it is comparatively scarce, and
to the north of the Sierra de Guadarrama decidedly
rare. In the neighbourhood of Madrid these birds
arrive about the end of March or early in April, and
at once commence to lay their eggs in the nests of the
Common Magpie; the first two eggs found by us were
taken from a nest of this bird in a high oak tree in the
grounds of the Casa de Campo, a royal demesne just
outside the walls of Madrid, on April 12, 1865;
this nest contained no other eggs. It is, of course,
impossible to discover how many eggs go to form
the usual complement laid by this Cuckoo; I quote
on this subject my notes on the ornithology of
Spain, in ‘ The Ibis,’ referring to the neighbourhood of
Aranjuez:—On April 29, 1865, we found three nests
of Magpie all containing eggs of this Cuckoo, which is
extremely common in this locality; in one nest were
eight eggs of the Magpie and three of the Cuckoo, in
another one of the former and three of the latter bird,
and in the third two of each species. In almost every
case in which we found eggs of both species together
the Cuckoo’s eggs were more advanced towards hatching
than those of the rightful proprietors of the nest. We
took altogether some forty or more eggs of the present
species near Aranjuez, and might certainly have trebled
the number. On one occasion only did we find a
Cuckoo’s egg elsewhere than in a Magpie’s nest, this
exception was a single egg found in a Raven’s nest with
five of those of that species; the greatest number of
Cuckoo’s eggs found by us in any one nest was eight,
with five of the Magpie. I am assured that in a certain
district of Andalucia this Cuckoo lays commonly in the
nests of the’Blue-winged Pie (Cyanopica cooki); but,
although I have no reason to doubt this story, I have
as yet no proof of its truth.
The eggs of this species vary but little in groundcolour
and markings—pale greenish blue with red-
brown and purple spots; but the variation in size
frequently met with in eggs from the same nest is
very remarkable. Colonel Irby writes :—“ The egg can
be easily distinguished by its elliptical form, those of
the Magpie being pointed at one end; ” and as a
general rule this distinction holds good. The shell of
the Cuckoo’s egg is also much smoother and far more
strong than that of the Magpie.
The difference of plumage between adults and birds
of the year is so singular and noticeable that more
than one writer on ornithology has treated of the latter
as a distinct species; for this reason, and because the
adult has been more frequently figured than the young
bird, I have given the prominent place in the accompanying
Plate to a bird of the year. The Spotted
Cuckoo is a noisy, restless bird, constantly during the
spring and early summer engaged in pursuing and
being pursued by its own species and the Magpies.
In flight it much resembles our Common Cuckoo ;
both sexes are very vociferous, their notes consisting of
a harsh barking chatter and a loud rolling cry, which
Mr. Saunders renders not inaptly by the word “ burroo-
burroo,” rapidly repeated.