OUR COMMON CUCKOO, AND OTHER CUCKOOS AND PARASITICAL BIRDS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2397, 8 February 1900, Page 65

OUR COMMON CUCKOO, AND OTHER CUCKOOS AND PARASITICAL BIRDS.

(By Alexander H. Japp, LL.D., P.R.S.E.) London: Thomas Buileigh — 6s. This handsome volume comes to remind me, alas, that two-and-twenty years have flown since last 1 saw the British cuckoo and heard it call. For long all I knew of the bird was derived from poets on the one hand and folk-lorists on the other. With the poets the bird has always been j\ favourite — its call, " a wandering voice babbling of sunshine and of flowers." Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Tennyson, and a host of others have sung of the cuckoo, but no poetic gem ever dedicated to it exceeds in beauty the " Song of the Cuckoo," by Michael Bruce. Bruce died in youth, quits unknown in the world oi letters. His MSS. — obtained by fraud from his aged parents —were appropriated by the Rev. Roberl Logan, who had been a college friend of Biuce. Logan, who had promised to find a publisher for them and to have them disposed of for the benefit of the poet's relations, published the best of the poems including the " Cuckoo," as his own. The fraud Avas detected, and Logan, who was ai one time minister of a Presbyterian Church in Leilh, I have heard, took to drink and died disreputably in Australia. In folk-lore the cuckoo figures as a bird of evil omen in many a quaint passage. In the rural districts of Old England the unmarried of either sex used to calculate the number of years of single blessedness still alloled to them by counting the cuckoo's notes when first they heard it in the spring. It had a reputation as a kind of banshee also, for in some parts of England it was believed that if anyone was about to die suddenly, or lose a relation, the

bird would light upon a blasted branch or rotten bough and call " Cuckoo !" In later days close observation of its doings has besmirched the bird's reputation, in a remarkable degree, although the poets still go into mild ecstacies over its return | in spring, and are quite right too, from their own view point. Iv the present ! volume Dr Japp aims at foirmilating a consistent interpretation of the habits of this strange " bird-monster "' and chami pion trickster of the feathered tribe.-'. The male cuckoo is as ill-conditioned, selfish, and passionate a "fellow as any that goes in feathers — these ars his adult characters and if anything they are more marked during his earliest, infantile days than later in life. Less, flattering still, however, must be our estimate of the female. The lady cuckoo's character is not improved by the fact that she averages at least Rye admirers of the opposite sex all the time. Her tern per is bad, her passions violent, and her i selfishness extreme. She is the society lady among birds, and abhors maternal 1 duties, shirking them all she can. Instead ' of building a nest, laying her eggs in it, and fondly attending to the wants of her offspring, she cunningly drops her eggs, one here, another there, in the nests of birds who are in no way related to her, and ta whom she gives no recompense whatever. In very rare instances she reverts to the original and legitimate habit, makes a ncrt an cj broods her eggs, but as a rule she puts her* progeny out to nurse. Indeed, the male, also, assists in this process by mimicking a hawk and thus scaring birds away from their nests. These erratic eggs are not usually, as they ought to be, ejected or destroyed by the birds into whose nests they are put. Along with the legitimate ovine occupants they arc almost always successfully hatched, and it is then that the trouble really commences. The young cuckoo emerges from the shell steeped in the belief that to be a family of 1 one is far better th?.n being one of a family. Shortly after birth it proceeds to clear the nest of whatever eggs and young birds it happens to contain. Photographic pictures showing the vicious litclc monster in the act of perpetrating this horrid villainy add greatly to the interest of the book. A 1 great deal of controversy has arisen over these and other adult and infantile foibles of the cuckoo, and many explanations have been suggested. Dr Japp is the latent to enter the lists, and he certainly wields a vigorous controversial lance. Xo doubl ' many intimate matters herein discussed will receive the attention they certainly merit from authorities on bird-life. The author'? , discussion of the evidence bearing upon egg-laying and disposing, colouration, duplicate etickoo eggs in the same nest, etc., is exhaustive and thorough, but, in a ! general way, I think he would have sm- \ proved his own case by a less striking display of animus in re Charles Darwin, Romams, and other naturalists. I One naturally imagines that the birds imposed upon would resent the murder of their callow young and the ejection of ; eggs from the nest, but very seldom does anything of the sort happen. They have been seen to look on at the process of eviction '" as though lather proud of the doings 1 of the lusty youngster." In other instances the interloper's eggs have been known lo be thrown out, or perforated by beak thrusts, i or covered over Avith new nest material and thus prevented from hatching. These facts show that in bird life as, in other departments of nature many degrees of intelligence are to be found. A more startling fact by far is it thot the young cuckoo begins operations when not more than a day :or two old. It is then r.uite blind, and entirely featherless. bin it has a store of muscular energy at call that is not easiry accounted for. The British cuckoo certoinly chooses almost invariably the ncsfc of . a small bird — hedge-sparrow, wren, robin, etc., in which to put its egg, but that egg itself is small, very small, in proportion to those of other birds ; yet the chick is able to get nestlings sometimes bigger than it- j self upon its back, to climb with them to j the nest's edge, and to heave them over, and this it will do over and over again in a brief space of time. If, as sometimes happens, a nestling contrives to remain in the natural domicile until the cuckoo is ten or twelve days old both biids may grow up in amity together. The young cuckoo loses its acerbity about that time and displays, during the rest of its nestling days, . much softer trait 6 -. The foster parents usually prove most devoted slaves, so much so that in striving to feed their voracious and giant bantling they sometimes themselves actually perish from sheer starvation. The parent cuckoos have gone abroad — migrated — long before their young have passed | from the care of the foster-parent. Yet, somehow, the bulk of the j-oung birds man- j age to follow the I'oute, and though they may not find tlieir unnatural fathers and

mothers, they at least find ike place- they go to. I hope I have said enough to j-iiov thafc the cuckoo is realty" an important meLi'i^r of the great fyniily of curious birds. LTniike the kiwis, raoas, etc , of New Zealcrd, the Bnti'li bird i> distinguished lers by what it is than by vh.it it docs. Dr Jtipp has r.ot restricted liinKelf to the home birdfar from it— hi* cuckoo lore is titr.ved from C"\c-iv pa>"t of the globs — Sp t >in, Xe-.v Zeala.ie. Australia, India, Egypt, Pi'lcfcine, -'America. Afilc.i, crcli yielding their quota. It is only tin other day th.it a Scotch naturalist, so-called, denied the existence of any such bird as the cuckoo, yel Dr Japp has been able to chaw some of lib. Ls.-t evidence ;is to ne^l ejsulio.i, etc., from ovsr the border, and hi-, intaiitaneous photographs also hail from ScotHno. The Nev. Ze»l>nd cuckoos' aie very like their BntjVh relatives in habit, and regarding ihem quolaums are freely made from the worbi ol Sir \Y. Buller. Dr Japp f.pe iks of the ke. 1 <■& a "bloodsucker! Is it so? It u^-ed to ba credited with a penchant for kidney fai as I remember, but piobably I am out ol due in kea-lore. 0/ parasitic birds other than cuckoos dealt with, mo : t interest attaches to the starlinglike cow bud of .America. While far from agreeing with all tho author's conclusions. 3 freely admit that he hss added a notable bit of woik to zoological literature. H.U book contains passages that non-<pecialisis miy safely skip — subtle ■ niceties concerning the '• zygo'di-.ctyle foot " of ihe cuckoo for instance, but apart from such trifles it remains an excellent piece of scientific-literary work: well -written, wel? illustrated, well indiced, and having a full bibliography appended, and numerous useful references scattered throughout the text. " Our Common Cuckoo, and bother Cuckoos and Parasitical Birds,'' i& a bock that nc Held naturalist can afford to ignore, and i< will certainly be read with eager intere&t bj many a bird-lover among tha general public. — DINORXIS.