THE BIRD WHO HAS NO NEST.
HIS is the cuckoo. She and her mate have no home of their own; but that does not seem to trouble them. They peep here and there among the leaves, until they find the nest of some other bird,—a lark, perhaps, or a thrush, or a yellow-hammer; and, if the owner of the nest is away, Mrs. Cuckoo leaves within it a small egg.
There are some birds that can take care of themselves almost as soon as they are born; but Mrs. Cuckoo never leaves her eggs in their nests. Oh, no! she chooses a nest in which the young birds are well cared for by their mothers, and fed with food on which the young cuckoos thrive best.
Why she is too idle to build her own nest, no one knows. Some people say it is because she stays so short a time in the same country, that her young ones would not get strong enough to fly away with her, if she waited to build her nest. Others think it is because she is such a great eater, that she cannot spend time to find food for her children.
But the kind foster-mothers, the larks and the thrushes, care for the egg that the cuckoo leaves in their houses, although, if any other bird leaves one, they will take no care of it at all, but roll it out upon the ground.
The Scotch word for cuckoo, gowk, means, also, a foolish person. But I think they ought rather to have named it a wicked person; for the young cuckoo is so ungrateful and selfish, that he often gets one of the other little birds on his back, and then, climbing to the top of the nest, throws it over the edge. These are the English cuckoos of which I have been telling you. I am glad to say that their American cousins take care of their own children.
SOPHIE E. EASTMAN.
