The female cuckoo, which seems to have no regular mate, lays her egg, as we have hinted, or at least puts it, into the nest of some other and smaller bird. Not more than one cuckoo egg has ever been seen in a nest at a time; from which it has been concluded, either that she distributes her favour pretty widely, or that many of her eggs are destroyed by the real proprietors of the nest. The exploits of the female cuckoo in depositing her egg in the nest of another bird are sometimes astonishing. Mr. Hoy, a Norfolk naturalist, gives the following instance:-"I once observed," writes he, "a cuckoo enter a wagtail's nest, which I had noticed before to contain one egg; in a few minutes the cuckoo crept from the hole, and was flying away with something in its beak, which proved to be the egg of the wagtail, which it dropped on my firing again at it. On examining the nest, the cuckoo had only made an exchange, leaving its own egg for the one taken." The originallydeposited eggs are not always ejected, but are frequently hatched at the same time as the young intruder. In this case, the capacious "gape" of the juvenile cuckoo gets everything, and the proper natives of the nest are either starved, or civilly tilted out to die of cold as well as hunger. Frequently the egg of a cuckoo is in a nest so situated that the parent bird could not possibly have "laid" it in it; and the only solution to the difficulty is, to suppose that the egg was carried in her bill or throat. Indeed, it has been proved beyond dispute, that she does so carry her egg. Mr. J. O. Harper, of Norwich, on the 14th of April, 1851, shot a cuckoo in the very act.

The care bestowed upon the young cuckoo by its foster-parents is truly remarkable; and the curious instinct which prompts them to feed the young fellow on larvæ of insects, while they themselves eat seeds, is even more so. An interesting case of this kind is recorded in the Field Naturalist's Magazine' for January, 1834:"A cuckoo was found, just feathered, in the nest of a hedge

chanter. It was immediately taken from thence, and placed in a cage containing a hen canary. The birds agreed pretty well; but what is most singular, when the proper food for the cuckoo (small caterpillars, &c.) was placed in the cage, the canary fed its young charge with that, although she herself kept to the hempseed, &c., to which she had been accustomed." An instance of wrens feeding a young cuckoo is related by a gentleman in Hampshire, in the 'Naturalist' for September, 1854:-"A pair of wrens," he writes, "well known in the garden, had built their nest in the thatch of a wood-house, immediately over the doorway. The cottager, aware of the shy habits of the little birds, had on two occasions only introduced his finger into the nest. The first time he ascertained the presence of eggs. The second time, namely, on the 25th of June, he found young birds, more than one little mouth encountering his finger, as he imagined. Two or three days subsequently a young bird was found upon the floor of the wood-house, immediately under the nest, which proved to be a cuckoo. Nothing was seen of any little wrens, but it was suggested as probable that the cat might have appropriated them, when ousted from above, for her own especial use. As the foundling had evidently fallen from the nest, an attempt was made to replace it, but without success. The domicile was no longer capable of containing its late overgrown occupant. The bird was therefore put into a cage, and suspended from the branch of an apple-tree close by, upon which the wrens, without loss of time, resumed their parental offices; and when we visited the cottage on the 8th of July, we had the pleasure of seeing them employed incessantly, and without being much impeded by our observations, in feeding their insatiable nestling, which was then about ten days old, nearly full fledged, and at least four times as large as either of its diminutive protectors."

We must not, however, suppose that the cuckoo is devoid of all parental feeling. Though it will, when it can, leave the rearing

of its offspring to the care of creatures less able, so far as size is concerned, to perform the functions of a mother, it not unfrequently hovers about the neighbourhood, as if to see that the proxies perform that duty, and, in a few well-authenticated instances, has been known to take upon itself the task of feeding the nestlings. An unquestionable instance of this is recorded in the pages of the journal just quoted, by Mr. J. M'Intosh, a close observer of natural history. His observations have been corroborated by several other creditable naturalists. "In the summer of 1850," he writes, "in the month of July, a hedge accentor constructed its nest in a holly hedge, about two feet from the ground, and about fourteen from an adjoining garden wall. Immediately on its being finished, and before the owner of it had time to deposit her second egg, a cuckoo, which had for some days past been watching with anxious eye the operations of the accentor, during the temporary absence of the said hedge accentor, quietly deposited in the nest her egg, which occupied but a few minutes, and immediatly took her departure to a neighbouring elm-tree, uttering at the same time her well-known cry of Cuckoo, cuckoo,' in rapid succession. Of this egg the hedge accentor took no notice, but deposited her four eggs, and commenced incubation. In due time this important office was completed, and three hedge accentors and the cuckoo were brought to life (or rather light); the fourth egg of the accentor proved addled. In the course of three days the young accentors by some means, but by what means I could not ascertain, took their departure, as did also their mother, which I never saw again, nor any remains of the young; but the addled egg I found on the ground immediately beneath the nest. This departure took place in the evening, or early in the morning. On the fourth day, seeing the old cuckoo frequently fluttering about the hedge which contained the accentor's nest and young cuckoo, I was induced to watch her proceedings with some little care and attention. Taking my stand,

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not a great distance from the nest, under the wall alluded to, in a few minutes the old cuckoo flew over the wall to the nest; I immediately applied a pocket telescope to my eye, and very distinctly saw the old bird feed its young. This occupation I watched some time every day, creeping nearer and nearer, till I could see distinctly the actual feeding of the young without the aid of the telescope or spectacles. I now became anxious to know whence the bird procured its food, which I imagined, from its frequent visits to the nest, was at no great distance, and of what description it was. Knowing the cuckoo to be particularly fond of caterpillars, I walked into the garden, where there were some gooseberry bushes covered with caterpillars of Abraxas grossulariata; thither I bent my steps, and saw the cuckoo engaged in clearing the bushes of the caterpillars. When she had what she considered sufficient for that meal, off she flew in a direct line over the wall, and, as if she had been shot, dropped on the other side, where the hedge in question was. In this manner the old bird continued to feed her young as long as a caterpillar remained on the bushes. When they were finished, she proceeded to a field near in quest of food; and through her diligence her progeny got as fat as a London alderman."

With this notice of one good point in its character, we leave the cuckoo. An old divine indulges the fancy that the Creator has allowed in the lower animals the development of certain evil passions, in order that man might be the more disgusted with vice, and proportionably enamoured of virtue. According to this theory, the cuckoo dishonestly defrauding its simpler neighbours, and bringing up its family at the expense of the industrious members of the feathered community, is a sort of tacit exemplar of the contemptible character of those who are addicted to similar practices in the affairs of human life.

CURIOUS BIRDS' NESTS.

INTERESTING to all, from the thoughtless school-boy to the reflective sage, are the nests of the feathered tribes; and in the spring time of the year, when the voice of the singing of birds is heard, their exquisite fabrications are to be found in grove and field, orchard and hedgerow. We offer a few remarks which may serve as a guide in the observation of these structures.

A bird's nest, although a work of instinct, is suggestive of care, ingenuity, and delicacy of manipulation, choice in the selection of materials, and artifice in its site. It displays order, fitness of adaptation, and industry. Nests, however, vary in beauty and nicety of structure as well as in the materials of which they are composed. Consequently some are much more attractive to the eye than others. Compare, for example, the simple platform of sticks which constitutes the nest of the turtle-dove or the wood-pigeon, with the compact and elegant fabric of the chaffinch or the goldfinch; or that of the rook with the pensile cradle of the gold-crest, suspended at the extremity of a sweeping branch of larch, shrouded amidst a profusion of drooping tassels.

But, however exquisite and pleasing many of the nests of our British birds may be, certain it is that they are in numerous instances far surpassed in ingenuity by those of foreign species; and, as we have examples before us of some of these, we may here at once describe them, by way of comparison with the most artistic specimens of home-made manufacture.

We contemplate a group of hanging nests, some suspended at the extremity of a twig or slender shoot, and others from a long fibrous leaf. They vary in structure and material; many are of large size, firm and compact, and formed of an intricate interlacement of long threads of wiry grass; the entrance, moreover, is at the extremity