the external hind toe capable of being brought halfway forward. The tibia are clothed with long feathers and the tail is rather long, always more or less wedgeshaped, and strongly fortified by coverts. The character of the plumage is firm and thickly set. The hues of the more typical species are in general rather sombre, but a few African species exhibit a brilliancy of colour rarely equalled in the feathered race. So faintly is the scansorial structure indicated in these birds, says Mr. Swainson, that but for their natural habits, joined to the position of their toes, we should not suspect they were so intimately connected with the more typical groups of the tribe as they undoubtedly are. They neither use their bill for climbing, like the Parrots, nor for making holes in trees, like the Woodpeckers; neither can they mount the perpendicular stems like the Certhiada, or Creepers, and yet they decidedly climb, although in a manner peculiar to themselves. Having frequently seen different species of the Brazilian Cuckoos (forming part of the genus Coccyzus) in their native forests, I may safely affirm that they climb in all other directions than that of the perpendicular. Their flight is so feeble, from the extreme shortness of their wings, that it is evidently performed with difficulty, and it is never exercised but to convey them from one tree to another, and their flights in the thickly-wooded tracts of tropical America are of course very short; they alight upon the highest boughs, and immediately begin to explore the horizontal and slanting ramifications with the greatest assiduity, threading the most tangled mazes, and leaving none unexamined. In passing from one bough to another they simply hop, without using their wings, and their motions are so quick that an unpractised observer, even if placed immediately beneath the tree, would soon lose sight of the bird. The Brazilian hunters give to their Cuckoos the general name of Cat's Tail; nor is the epithet inappropriate, for their long hanging tails, no less than their mode of climbing the branches, give them some distant resemblance to that quadruped. I have no doubt that the great length of tail possessed by nearly all the Cuckoos is given to them as a sort of balance, just as a rope-dancer, with such an instrument in his hands, preserves his footing when otherwise he would assuredly fall. Remote, then, as the Cuckoos unquestionably are from the typical Scansores (the Woodpeckers, according to Mr. Swainson), we yet find the functions of the tail contribute to that office, although in a very different mode to that which it performs among the Woodpeckers, the Parrots, and the Creepers. The toes are placed in pairs, that is, two directed forward, and two apparently backward; but a closer inspection will show that the latter are not strictly posterior, and that they differ so very materially from those of the Picidæ as clearly to indieate a different use. The organization of the external posterior toe of all the Woodpeckers, Parrots, and Toucans renders it incapable of being brought forward, even in the slightest degree; whereas in the Cuckoos this toe can be made to form a right angle with that which is next to it in front, from which circumstance it has been termed versatile this term, however, is not strictly correct, : inasmuch as the toe connot be brought more than halfway forward, although it can be placed entirely backward. The Cuckoos, in fact, are half-perching, halfclimbing birds, not only in their feet, but in their Cuckoos are never found in other than warm and temperate climates. Two species only are known to resort to Europe, and these never show themselves in our quarter of the globe, except in the warm season. Tropical countries and those which approach the equator afford the greatest number of species. The food of the Cuckoos consists principally of soft fruits and soft insects, especially the latter, and more particularly when they are in the larva state. Most of the species are migratory, and the more typical species fly with strength and rapidity. Although the common European Cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) is so generally known from its singular song, and parasitic habit, as it is termed, of depositing its egg in the nest of another bird, and thereby imposing upon another species the duty and labour of hatching and rearing its offspring, we must enter into some detail concerning it, more particularly since some points of its economy are strangely different to the habits of most birds, others have been little noticed, and many still remain to be explained. The form of the nostrils in the typical Cuckoo is very peculiar, and it is the opinion of Mr. Swainson that future observation will show this structure to be intimately connected with their parasitic habits. The nests of those species in which the Cuckoo deposits * Magazine of Zoology and Botany. her egg, we all know, continues that able naturalist, are built in the thickest and most central parts of trees and bushes, to discover which superior powers of smell have been given to the Toucans (which feed upon the eggs or young), and, in a less degree, are probably conferred upon the Cuckoos to facilitate their search after a foster-parent for their young. This peculiar-shaped nostril is restricted to such Cuckoos as are parasitic. The American and other species of the Coccyzus have the aperture of a lengthened oval shape, or in the form of a slit, and all we know of these birds sanctions the idea that they are not parasitic. The Cuckoo arrives in this country about the middle of April, at least its well-known vernal call is heard. at that time, sooner or later; however, this depends upon the temperature of the season, for should the weather be cold and inclement, though the birds may have made their appearance, their note is not uttered. It is the male bird alone, according to Mr. Selby, that repeats the well-known notes, the female making only a chattering noise. These birds leave us again towards the latter part of June, or the beginning of July. But the young birds are often observed to remain for a much longer period, even till September. It is a general opinion that the Cuckoo does not pair, nor, according to the common acceptation of the term, is it a polygamous bird, but all of them live together in a promiscuous state of concubinage. Tied down by no duties of incubation, these birds are bound to no particular spot, but wander without control from place to place throughout the summer. It is generally believed that this "vagrant Cuckoo" never does construct a nest, and that it always selects that of an insect-feeding bird wherein to deposit its egg. Among others the Hedge-chanter or Dunnock, the Reed-bunting, the Titlark or Meadow Pipit, the Pied Wagtail, the Yellow-hammer, etc., have been recorded as birds to whose charge the egg has been committed, but the first is said to be most commonly chosen. The nests of the Greenfinch, Linnet, Whitethroat, and even of the Wren, have been mentioned as the place of deposit. Whether the bird actually lays the egg in the nest has been doubted, and if the case of one having been assigned to the charge of the Wren be a fact, it is almost conclusive that she does not so deposit it in all cases, for the aperture of the Wren's nest is in the side, and not more than large enough to admit the Wren herself. The Cuckoo egg is remarkably small for the size of the bird, hardly equalling in this respect the size of the Skylark; it is therefore somewhat in proportion to the small nests into which it is commonly introduced. Its colour is white sprinkled with two shades of ash-coloured spots, mostly at the larger end. A Cuckoo has been observed to watch a pair of Wagtails constructing their nest, and ere the structure was yet completed deposit its egg. The following day the female Wagtail commenced laying, without disturbing the strange egg, which was hatched at the same time with the rest, and the young Cuckoo soon contrived to have the whole nest to itself. It is a remarkable circumstance in the economy of the Cuckoo, that in its earliest infancy it should display so much ingenuity, prescience, or whatever it |