tail, flying something like a hawk. You should remember the rhyming
lines about the cuckoo's visit to this country:

In April,
Come he will.
In May,
He sings all day.
In June,
He alters his tune.
In July,
He prepares to fly.
Come August,
Go he must.

"I think you said, papa," said May, "that it is only the male bird
that utters the cuckoo note; what kind of a voice has the female?" I
have never heard the note of the female cuckoo. Mr. Jenyns says, "The
note of the female cuckoo is so unlike that of the male, which is
familiar to every one, that persons are sometimes with difficulty
persuaded that it proceeds from that bird. It is a kind of chattering
cry, consisting of a few notes uttered fast in succession, but
remarkably clear and liquid." Very curious are the habits of the
cuckoo. Unlike most other birds, they do not pair; you all know, too,
that cuckoos make no nests, but lay their eggs one by one in the nests
of various other birds, such as those of the hedge-warbler, or
hedge-sparrow as it is generally but wrongly called, robin,
white-throat, and other birds. It is probable that the same cuckoo
does not go twice to the same nest to deposit her egg. What a curious
exception is the case of the cuckoo to the instinctive love of their
offspring observable in almost all birds! After the eggs are laid the
parent bird has no further trouble with them; no period of incubation
to bare the breast of the brooding bird; no anxiety about her young
ones, as some idle, wanton lad hunts amongst the trees and bushes,
destroys both nest and eggs, or tortures the helpless fledglings!
"But, papa," said Willy, "how does it happen that the young birds
hatched in the same nest with the young cuckoo always get turned out
of it." The cuckoo, being much the larger and heavier bird, fills up
the greater part of the nest, consequently the smaller fledgling
companions get placed on the sides of the nest, and partially also on
the back of the young cuckoo; when, therefore, the latter stands up in
the nest he often lifts up on his back one of the small companions,
who thus gets thrown headlong to the ground. This seems to me to be
the mode in which the ejection sometimes takes place, till at last the
young cuckoo is left sole possessor of the nest, and of course gets
all the food; at the same time I ought to say that some naturalists
attribute a murderous disposition to the young cuckoo, and say