File:Stories about birds of land and water (1874) (14750553492).jpg

Identifier: storiesaboutbird00kirb (find matches)
Title: Stories about birds of land and water
Year: 1874 (1870s)
Authors: Kirby, Mary, 1817-1893 Kirby, Elizabeth, 1823-1873
Subjects: Birds -- Juvenile literature
Publisher: Hartford (Conn.) : American Publishing Co.
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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obuild a nest, or, indeed, to trouble herself with family cares. Yet, like theother birds, she has a family to provide for—or rather, eggs to hatch. At thistime of the year her feathered neighbours have finished their nests and laidtheir eggs. And the cuckoo seems well acquainted with the fact. As shegoes her rounds among them some fine morning, she looks sharply abouther, and makes up her m.ind what to do. There are some of the birds that she chooses as foster-mothers for herown offspring. She does not consult them about it, for perhaps they wouldrefuse—for it is no great honour—and mischief, as a rule, comes of it, thatis, to their own poor little nestlings. THE CUCKOO AND HER EGGS. 153 But the birds are in happy ignorance of the honour intended for them.The cuckoo flies stealthily about among the bushes, and visits first one nestand then the other while the parents are away. She is very cunning, and seemsto know exactly the home that will suit her offspring. It must be fed on
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THE GOLDEN CUCKOO. caterpillars and grubs, and she chooses the little birds that provide such farefor their families. She fixes on the hedge-sparrow, or the lark, or the black-bird, and contrives to drop an egg in the nest. Her egg is small and goesin very easily. But she has often been accused of destroying the other 154 STORIES ABOUT BIRDS. eggs in the nest, and we are afraid with truth. When she has accompHshedthis feat, she flies away, and drops another egg in another nest, and so on. By-and-by the parent birds come back and find the strange egg in thenest. Sometimes they are very angry, and turn it out. But more frequentlythe mother bird takes it under her care, and sits upon it with her own. After a proper time the eggs are all hatched, and the strange httlebird comes out of its shell, and the mother begins her usual work of feeding.But it is a curious fact that very soon her own offspring disappear, and theyoung cuckoo remains master of the nest. It is, in fact, so large as to

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