Or hateful cuckoos hatch in sparrows’ nests?”—Lucrece.
The solution of this question is the more puzzling from the fact that this parasitical habit is not common
to all species of the genus cuckoo. An American species builds a nest for itself, and hatches its own eggs.
THE CUCKOO.
The habits of our English bird must always be as much a marvel to us as its remarkable voice.
“He knows me, as the blind man knows the cuckoo,
By the bad voice.”
Merchant of Venice, Act v. Sc. 1.
“The plain song cuckoo gray,
Whose note full many a man doth mark,