. The royal natural history. te, aguttural and hollow-sounding hoo, resen»l)ling the cry of the hoopoe. One of themost interesting of all birds is the connnon cuckoo (C. caiiorits), not the leastremarkable feature in its conformation l)tiiig its great similarity to a hawk, as not PICARIAN BIRDS. only evidenced by its colour and form but by its mode of flight, and which is somarked that the bird is always mobbed by smaller birds, as if it was really a colour is grey above and white below, regularly barred with black like ahawk, while the throat is buff. It has also long thigh feathers,
. The royal natural history. te, aguttural and hollow-sounding hoo, resen»l)ling the cry of the hoopoe. One of themost interesting of all birds is the connnon cuckoo (C. caiiorits), not the leastremarkable feature in its conformation l)tiiig its great similarity to a hawk, as not PICARIAN BIRDS. only evidenced by its colour and form but by its mode of flight, and which is somarked that the bird is always mobbed by smaller birds, as if it was really a colour is grey above and white below, regularly barred with black like ahawk, while the throat is buff. It has also long thigh feathers, like those of anaccipitrine bird, so that with its yellow eye the resemblance is complete, and whenflying it is by no means easy to tell at the first glance whether it is a cuckoo or in the air. An accustomed eye may at last detect the more elongated lookof the head, owing to the long bill of the cuckoo, whereas a hawk in flight oftenlooks as if it had no bill at all, so blunt is the aspect of a hawks head when seem. ^^ \V\\ COMMON CUCKOO {\ nat. size). at a little distance. The interest in the history of the cuckoo is, however, con-centrated on its nesting-habits, and the success with which it imposes on otherbirds in getting them to rear its young. There can scarcely be any doubt thatthe number of males considerably exceeds that of the females, and some naturalistsnot only speak of the species as polyandrous, but declare that the female bird the courting. Certain it is that the presence of a female cuckoo excites theinterest of more than one male, as may be seen in spring-time by those who knowhow to detect what has been well-described as the water-bubbling note of thefemale cuckoo, which Brehm renders as kwik-wik-wik, and Seebohm as hwow-ow-ow-ow. The female, on giving utterance to this note, is answered at once byevery male in the neighbourhood, and they lose no time in fl^ing towards the tree CUCKOOS. 5 Avhere she is seated, so that there are often quarre
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, booksubjectnaturalhistory, booksubjectzoology
