Identifier: picturesofbirdli00lodg (find matches)
Title: Pictures of bird life : on woodland meadow, mountain and marsh
Year: 1903 (1900s)
Authors: Lodge, R. B
Subjects: Birds -- Pictorial works
Publisher: London : S. H. Bousfield
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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ld markthe bright yellow eyes of theHawk, and the feet among the))reast-feathers ready to strike,but a thick and high hedge pre-vented me from seeing the endof the chase. There is no doubt,however, that, unless the Kingflsher coidd take shelter undera bank or drop into the water, it must have been taken.They are not birds capable of prolonged effort in fliglit,though for a short distance they tra^•el ^ery quickly. One of tlie most curious habits among birds mustsurely be that which characterises the Cuckoo, of layingits eggs in the nests of other birds, and thereby riddingitself of the burden of bringing up its offspring. Otherbirds show such devotion to their young—love of off-spring being so predominant in their natiues that life itselfis freely sacriflced in their defence—that this callousnesson the part of the Cuckoo is very abnormal and verydifficult to account for. The South European form, the Greater Spotted Cuckoo,also practises the same parasitical custom, but restricts
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Kestrel (Fa/co tiiiiiuiuiihis) and Nest. 144 Pictures of Bird Life itself almost exclusively to laying in tlie nest of tlieMagpie. The Aiiierieaii Cuckoo, liowever, builds a nestand rears its own progeny like other birds. The sound of the well-known and familiar note of ourbird is always eagerly expected, as a welcome harbingerof spring. It sometimes happens that numbers of Cuckoosarrive sinniltaneously. as if they travelled in large flocks,and that their mocking cry of Cuckoo is heard in alldirections, and the birds conspicuously seen in numbers aboutthe flelds and hedgerow trees, where the day before therewas not one to be heard or seen. The nests particularly favoured by them seem to bethose of the Hedge-sparrow, Meadow-pipit, Pied A^^agtail,and Robin, and I lune seen the egg in nests of the A\^illow-wren and Redstart. The latter nest was, as usual withthe Redstart, in a very small hole in a cherry-tree, into whichit was perfectly impossible for the Cuckoo herself to haveentered. I

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