THE CUCKOO.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VIII, Issue 35, 29 August 1891, Page 315

THE CUCKOO.

In Longman's ilagazine is an interesting account of the cuckoo's well-known, and seldom seen p>erfurniance of excluding the young of the bird who has hatched it. One of the most graphic sketches of the occurrence by an eye-wit-ness is that of Mr Gould’s "Birds of great Britain.’ The account by Mrs Blackburn, who watched the movements of the young cuekoo is full of interest. The nest under observation was that of the common meadow-pipet, and it had at first two eggs in it besides that of the cnekoo. l At one visit,' continues Mis Blackburn, ‘ the pipets were found to be hatched but not the cuckoo. At the next visit, which was after an interval of forty-eight hours, we found the young cuckoo alone in the nest, and both the young pipets lying down the bank, about ten inches from the margin of the nest, but quite lively after being warmed in the hand. They were replaced in the nest beside the cuckoo, which struggled about until it got its back under one of them? when it climbed backwards directly up the open side of the nest and hitched the pipet from its back on to the edge. It then stool quite upright on its legs, which were straddled wide apart, with the claws firmly fixed half-way down the inside of the nest, among the interlacing fibres of which the nest was woven, and, stretching its legs apart and backwards, it elbowed the pipet fairly over the margin so far that its struggles took it down the bank instead of back into the nest. After this the cuckoo stood a minute or two, feeling lack with its wings, as if to make sure that the pipet was rairly overboard, and then subsided into the bottom of the nest.’ The rejected bird was replaced, but on again visiting the nest on the following morning both pipets were found dead out of the nest. Mrs Blackburn continues : —* The cuckoo was perfectly naked, without the vestige of a feather, or even a hint of future feathers : its eyes were not yet opened, and its neck seemed too weak to support the weight of its head The most singular thing of ail was the direct purpose with which the blind little monster made for the open side of the nest, the only part where it could throw its burthen down the bank. I think all the spectators felt the sort of horror and awe at the apparent inadequacy of the creature's intelligence to its acts that one might have felt at seeing a toothless hag raise a ghost by an incantation. It was horribly uncanny and gruesome.'