Three times she flew at sight of us, but on the fourth morning she remained, though with tail straight up and ready for instant flight. But finding that we did not disturb her, she calmed down, and became so fearless that she did not move nor appear agitated when at last we did stop before her door, spoke to her, and identified her as the black-billed cuckoo.
On the eighth day of our visits it happened that I went to the woods alone. I found the bird at home, as usual, and armed with an opera-glass, I placed myself at some distance to watch her. Half an hour passed before she stirred a feather, but I was not lonely. A mourning-warbler came about, eating and singing alternately, after the manner of his kind, and the pretty trill of the black-throated green warbler came out of the woods. Then a crow mamma created a diversion by helping herself to an egg for her baby's breakfast, when a robin and a vireo—curious pair!—took after her with loud cries of indignation and reproach.
When this excitement was over, the trio had disappeared in the woods, and silence had fallen upon us again, I heard the cuckoo call at a little distance, and in a moment the bird himself alighted on a twig three feet above the nest. He was a beauty, but he appeared greatly excited. He threw up his tail till it pointed to the sky over his head, then let it slowly drop to the horizontal position. This he did three times, while he looked down upon his household, so absorbed that he did not see me at all.
Then the patient sitter vacated her post, and he flew down to the nest. The top was hidden by leaves, so that I cannot positively affirm that he sat on the eggs, but it is certain that he remained perfectly silent and motionless there for forty-five minutes. Then I caught sight of Madam returning. She came in from the woods, behind and at the level of the nest; there was a moment's flutter of wings, and I saw that her mate was gone, and she in her usual place.
The next day there was a change in the programme. It happened that I arrived when the mother was away, and the head of the household in charge. No sooner did I appear on the path than he flew off the nest with great hustle, thus betraying himself at once; but he did not desert his post of protector. He perched on a branch somewhat higher than my head, and five or six feet away, and began calling, a low "coo-oo." With every cry he opened his mouth very wide, as though to shriek at the top of his voice, and the low cry that came out was so ludicrously inadequate to his apparent effort that it was very droll. In this performance he made fine display of the inside of his mouth and throat, which looked, from where I stood, like black satin.
The calls he made while I watched him sounded so far off that if I had not been within six feet of him, and seen him make them, I should never have suspected him:—
"A cry
Which made me look a thousand ways,
In bush and tree and sky."
Finding that his voice did not drive me away, the bird resorted to another method; he tried intimidation. First he threw himself into a most curious attitude, humping his shoulders and opening his tail like a fan, then spreading his wings and resting the upper end of them on his tail, which made at the back a sort of scoop effect. Every time he uttered the cry he lifted wings and tail together, and let them fall slowly back to their natural position. It was the queerest bird performance I ever saw.