Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children

by W. Houghton

NEST OF REED WARBLER.

Hark! there is the cuckoo; how clearly he utters "cuckoo! cuckoo!" He is not far away. Some people can imitate the well-known note so well as to deceive the bird and bring it near the place where they are hiding. Your Uncle Philip only the other day made a cuckoo respond to him; had the day been calm instead of windy, he would, no doubt, have induced the bird to come close to us. There he goes with his long tail, flying something like a hawk. You should remember the rhyming lines about the cuckoo's visit to this country:

In April,
Come he will.
In May,
He sings all day.
In June,
He alters his tune.
In July,
He prepares to fly.
Come August,
Go he must.

"I think you said, papa," said May, "that it is only the male bird that utters the cuckoo note; what kind of a voice has the female?" I have never heard the note of the female cuckoo. Mr. Jenyns says, "The note of the female cuckoo is so unlike that of the male, which is familiar to every one, that persons are sometimes with difficulty persuaded that it proceeds from that bird. It is a kind of chattering cry, consisting of a few notes uttered fast in succession, but remarkably clear and liquid." Very curious are the habits of the cuckoo. Unlike most other birds, they do not pair; you all know, too, that cuckoos make no nests, but lay their eggs one by one in the nests of various other birds, such as those of the hedge-warbler, or hedge-sparrow as it is generally but wrongly called, robin, white-throat, and other birds. It is probable that the same cuckoo does not go twice to the same nest to deposit her egg. What a curious exception is the case of the cuckoo to the instinctive love of their offspring observable in almost all birds! After the eggs are laid the parent bird has no further trouble with them; no period of incubation to bare the breast of the brooding bird; no anxiety about her young ones, as some idle, wanton lad hunts amongst the trees and bushes, destroys both nest and eggs, or tortures the helpless fledglings! "But, papa," said Willy, "how does it happen that the young birds hatched in the same nest with the young cuckoo always get turned out of it." The cuckoo, being much the larger and heavier bird, fills up the greater part of the nest, consequently the smaller fledgling companions get placed on the sides of the nest, and partially also on the back of the young cuckoo; when, therefore, the latter stands up in the nest he often lifts up on his back one of the small companions, who thus gets thrown headlong to the ground. This seems to me to be the mode in which the ejection sometimes takes place, till at last the young cuckoo is left sole possessor of the nest, and of course gets all the food; at the same time I ought to say that some naturalists attribute a murderous disposition to the young cuckoo, and say that the other inmates of the nest are maliciously thrown out. Others, again, say that the foster birds throw their own young ones out. It is certain that the young are sometimes treated thus, for they have been seen on the ground when the young cuckoo was too small to eject them itself.

CUCKOO.

"But why do not cuckoos make nests and sit on their eggs like other birds?" said Jack. Such a question is more easily asked than answered; nevertheless I hope you will always try to discover reasons for things. "It is now," writes a celebrated naturalist, "commonly admitted that the more immediate and final cause of the cuckoo's instinct is, that she lays her eggs, not daily, but at intervals of two or three days; so that if she were to make her own nest and sit on her own eggs, those first laid would have to be left for some time unincubated, or there would be eggs and young birds of different ages in the same nest. If this were the case the process of laying and hatching might be inconveniently long, more especially as she has to migrate at a very early period, and the first hatched young would probably have to be fed by the male alone." The cuckoos come to this country about the middle of April; the male birds arrive before the females. Whether this arrangement is ungallant conduct on the part of the gentlemen birds, who prefer to come alone, or whether, just when the gentleman cuckoo is ready and almost impatient for a start, her ladyship has all at once discovered some important matter that ought to be finished before leaving the country, some adjustment of her dress, some tiresome feather that will ruffle itself up in spite of every effort to keep it smooth, I know not, but the fact remains, that my Lord and Lady Cuckoo do not travel together. Let us suppose that both sexes have arrived in this country, we will say about the 23rd of April. It is natural they want a little time to look about them; at any rate, no egg is ready for being sat upon till some weeks after the arrival of the birds, say the 15th of May. The eggs require fourteen days' setting before they are hatched; this brings the date to the 29th of May. The young ones will require three weeks in the nest and constant feeding all the time; we now arrive at about the 20th of June, when the young ones would be ready to leave the nest. But they want five weeks' more feeding by the parents, after they leave the nest, before they are able to provide for themselves; this would bring the date to about the 25th of July, when there is hardly a parent bird in the country; they have left for other parts of the world. "Oh! but, papa," said Willy, "you said in the lines you told us to remember—

In July,
He prepares to fly.
Come August,
Go he must.