Birds and Birding's Guide to:

Watching THE CUCKOO-LIKE BIRDS

THE CUCKOOS

European Cuckoo

As the parasitic habits of the European Cuckoo (Cu-culus canorus) have perhaps been more closely studied than in any other species, the following rather complete account may be given, quoted in the main from Mr. W. H. Hudson's admirable”British Birds.”He says: “One of the strangest facts in the strange history of this bird is that the egg is not laid in the nest in which it is found, but is carried by the Cuckoo in her bill and placed there. It is very small for so large a bird, although much larger in most cases than the eggs it is placed with, as its favorite nests in this country are all of small birds — Hedge-Sparrows, Reed-Warblers, Pied Wagtail, and Meadow Pipit. The eggs are very variable, being dull greenish or dull reddish gray, with spots and mot-tlings of a deeper shade.

In some instances the Cuckoo's egg resembles in color the eggs it is placed with, and it is thought by some naturalists that the female Cuckoo invariably deposits her eggs in the nests of one species. As a rule only one egg is laid in a nest, and a few days after the eggs are hatched the young Cuckoo gets rid of his foster brother by getting him on to his back, which is broad and hollow, and throwing him over the side of the nest. If any unhatched eggs remain in the nest, he gets rid of them in the same way.”This habit of ejecting the other occupants of the nest has been recently abundantly confirmed for various Australian Cuckoos.

From very reliable authority it appears that the European Cuckoo may lay as many as twenty eggs in a season, scattering them one or rarely two in a place, and at intervals of several days, the nesting season extending over a period of about two months. Mr. Hudson rather discredits the notion that Cuckoos may lay eggs which imitate in color and markings those of the bird they are deposited with, but Dr. Sharpe of the British Museum insists that they do this. He says: “The variability in the coloration of the eggs is well known, and it appears that in each individual the coloration of the egg is hereditary.

That is to say, the Cuckoos brought up by Meadow Pipits always select that species to be the foster parents of their own young in course of time, the same being the case with regard to Hedge-Sparrows, Wagtails, and other victims of the Cuckoo.”This view seems to find support in the statement of Mr. Hartert, another eminent European ornithologist, who gives as his opinion that one female Cuckoo always lays similarly colored eggs, in proof of which he exhibits thirty-one clutches of eggs that were known to have been laid by certain birds. If the shape of the nest permits, the egg is deposited directly in it, but otherwise it may be laid outside and placed in the nest with the bill of the bird, an egg of the owner being often removed to make room for it. As evincing a gleam of the maternal instinct it is a matter of apparently authentic record that the European Cuckoo may occasionally rear its own young; it is very exceptional, however. To their credit be it said, that the common North American Cuckoos enjoy a much better reputation, for they not only usually build a nest for themselves and rear their own young, but are credited with a considerable degree of affection for each other.
But to return to a broader consideration of the group, it may be said that in general Cuckoos are birds of small or moderate size, the plumage in perhaps the majority of cases being brownish or gray, usually more or less barred below, but there are some notable exceptions in which the plumage is a beautiful emerald-green or even black. Ornamental crests and tufts of feathers, while by no means the rule, are present in a few forms, and the wing-quills are occasionally produced into filiform extremities, while the bare spaces on the cheeks and about the eyes are often brilliantly colored. A majority of the Cuckoos are arboreal, a few, however, being strictly terrestrial. In distribution they are practically cosmopolitan, though most abundant in warm or tropical lands and having but few representatives in the colder regions. They number upward of two hundred species and subspecies, disposed in about forty-five genera, and are distinguished from their nearest relatives, the Plantain-eaters, by the naked oil-gland. The family has been divided into six subfamilies, though this disposition has not been accepted by all systematists.

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