the while in a harsh voice. I feared at first that they might kill him,
but I soon found that he was able to take care of himself. I would turn
over stones and dig into ant-hills for him, and he would lick up the
ants so fast that a stream of them seemed going into his mouth
unceasingly. I kept him till late in the fall, when he disappeared,
probably going south, and I never saw him again." My correspondent also
sends me some interesting observations about the cuckoo. He says a
large gooseberry-bush standing in the border of an old hedge-row, in
the midst of open fields, and not far from his house, was occupied by a
pair of cuckoos for two seasons in succession, and, after an interval
of a year, for two seasons more. This gave him a good chance to observe
them. He says the mother bird lays a single egg, and sits upon it a
number of days before laying the second, so that he has seen one young
bird nearly grown, a second just hatched, and a whole egg, all in the
nest at once. "So far as I have seen, this is the settled practice,--
the young leaving the nest one at a time to the number of six or eight.
The young have quite the look of the young of the dove in many
respects. When nearly grown they are covered with long blue pin-
feathers as long as darning-needles, without a bit of plumage on them.
They part on the back and hang down on each side by their own weight.
With its curious feathers and misshapen body, the young bird is
anything but handsome. They never open their mouths when approached, as
many young birds do, but sit perfectly still, hardly moving when
touched." He also notes the unnatural indifference of the mother bird
when her nest and young are approached. She makes no sound, but sits
quietly on a near branch in apparent perfect unconcern.

These observations, together with the fact that the egg of the cuckoo
is occasionally found in the nests of other birds, raise the inquiry
whether our bird is slowly relapsing into the habit of the European