builders known to me, and undoubtedly the slovenly manner
in which it constructs its nest causes the contents of many
to be accidentally destroyed, and this probably accounts to
some extent for the many apparent irregularities in their
nesting habits. The nests are shallow, frail platforms,
composed of small rootlets, sticks, or twigs, few of these
being over 4 or 5 inches in length, and among them a few
dry leaves and bits of mosses; rags, etc., are occasionally
mixed in, and the surface is lined with dry blossoms of
the horse-chestnut and other flowering plants, the male
aments or catkins of oaks, willows, etc., tufts of grasses,
pine and spruce needles, and mosses of different kinds.
These materials are loosely placed on the top of the little
platform, which is frequently so small that the extremities
of the bird project on both sides, and there is scarcely
any depression to keep the eggs from rolling out even in
only a moderate windstorm, unless one of the parents sits
on the nest, and it is therefore not a rare occurrence to
find broken eggs lying under the trees or bushes in which
the nests are placed. Some of these are so slightly built
that the eggs can be readily seen through the bottom. An
average nest measures about 5 inches in outer diameter by
1½ inches in depth. They are rarely placed over 20 feet
from the ground, generally from 4 to 8 feet upon horizontal
limbs of oak, beech, gum, dogwood, hawthorn, mulberry,
pine, cedar, fir, apple, orange, fig, and other trees.
Thick bushes particularly such as are overrun with wild
grape and other vines as well as hedgerows, especially
those of osage orange are most frequently selected for
nesting sites. The nests are ordinarily well concealed by
the overhanging and surrounding foliage and while usually
shy and timid at other times, the Yellow-billed Cuckoo is
generally courageous and bold in the defense of its chosen
home; the bird on the nest not unfrequently will raise its
feathers at right angles from the body and occasionally
even fly at the intruder.
Of five Massachusetts nests, on which I have notes, the lowest was
only 2 feet above the ground in some bushes, and the highest was
12 feet up in a crotch near the top of an oak sapling in a swampy
thicket near a brook. Owen Durfee mentions in his notes a nest 5
feet up in a juniper on the edge of a swamp. The others were at low
elevations in thickets along brooks.
A. D. DuBois has sent me his notes on five Illinois nests; one of
these was on the end of a branch of an apple tree, 8 feet from the
ground, near a country schoolhouse; this nest contained 3 eggs of
the cuckoo and a robin’s egg. Another was near the end of a branch
in an osage-orange hedge, 10 feet up; still another was in an
isolated clump of willows, between a field and a pasture, 6 feet
from the ground.
But cuckoos do not always nest in such low situations; there are
several records of their nesting well up in elm trees. Grant
Foreman (1924) tells of a pair that nested on his place in
Muskogee, Okla., for one or two years, high up in an elm tree; he
says: “The next year after nesting in this inaccessible place, they
built their nest in a little elm tree in the parking, in a low
limb overhanging the curb on an asphalt street where hundreds of
automobiles were passing every day, and here in this exposed, noisy
place they raised a brood of young. This year they built their nest
in a little hackberry tree in the parking along the side of my lot;
but here also the nest was on a low limb overhanging the curb on
a paved street, and the ice wagon stopped every morning directly
under this nest, which was so low down that the driver might have
put his hand in it.”
George Finlay Simmons (1915) mentions a nest that he found near
Houston, Tex., on the horizontal limb of a young pine near the
edge of some woods. He says of it: “The nest was a slight platform
about eleven feet up, through which I could see with ease; it
was composed of small pine twigs, about an eighth of an inch in
diameter and averaging six or eight inches long, and was much more
concave than I had expected. This shallow saucer was neatly, though
quite thinly lined with a few pine needles, a small quantity of
Spanish moss and several tiny buds.”
George B. Sennett (1879) says that in the Lower Rio Grande region
of Texas “ebony trees near the ranch, mesquites among cactuses,
thorny bushes in open chaparral, and open woodland, were favored
breeding places.”
Wright and Harper (1913) found a well-made nest in Okefinokee
Swamp, in a tupelo tree at the margin of the Suwannee. “It was
placed in a cluster of mistletoe on a horizontal branch four feet
above the water, and consisted of sticks interwoven with Spanish
‘moss’ (_Tillandsia usneoides_).”
Dr. Harry C. Oberholser (1896) gives the measurements of four
nests; the average height of the nests was 4 inches, and the
greatest outside diameters averaged 7.63 by 6.25 inches.
Both species of North American cuckoos often lay their eggs in
each other’s nests. The eggs of the yellow-billed cuckoo have
been found several times in nests of the robin and catbird. H. P.
Attwater (1892) writes: “In 1884 I found a Dickcissel’s nest which
contained five eggs and one Yellow-billed Cuckoo’s egg. The next
year some boys brought me three Black-throated Sparrow’s eggs and
one Yellow-billed Cuckoo’s, from the same field, which they said
they found all together in one nest.” J. L. Davison (1887) says:
“I also found a nest of _Merula migratoria_, taken possession of
by _Coccyzus americanus_ before it was finished, which was filled
nearly full of rootlets; and in this condition the Robin laid
one egg and the Cuckoo laid two and commenced incubation, when a
Mourning Dove (_Zenaidura macroura_) also occupied it and laid two
eggs and commenced incubation with the Cuckoo. I found both birds
on the nest at the same time, when I secured nest and eggs. The
eggs of the Robin and Cuckoo were slightly incubated; those of the
Mourning Dove were fresh.”
Bendire (1895) adds the wood thrush, cedar waxwing, and cardinal
to the list of birds that have been imposed upon, and says: “Such
instances appear to be much rarer, however, than those in which
they interlay with each other, and the majority of these may well
be due to accident, their own nest having possibly been capsized,
and necessity compelled the bird to deposit its egg elsewhere. Such
instances do occur at times with species that can not possibly be
charged with parasitic tendencies.”
Marcia B. Clay (1929) thus describes the cuckoo’s method of
gathering twigs for her nest:
Flying into an adjacent apple tree containing a
considerable quantity of dead material, the Cuckoo landed
on a limb, selected a dead twig, and grasping it in her
bill bent it back and forth until it snapped from the limb,
whereupon she flew with it to her nesting-site in the next
tree, arranged this twig and quickly returned for another.
As she tugged at a stubborn twig, her back was arched
and her long tail curved under or waved about. If a twig
resisted too well her attack, the bird desisted at once and
tried another. Always she worked rapidly with great energy,
attacking a twig as soon as she landed in the tree, never
carrying more than one twig at a time, holding it squarely
at right angles to her bill and flying rapidly with long
tail streaming.
The Cuckoo’s concentration in the work, coupled with her
indifference to observers, was remarkable. Not once did she
descend to the ground for material. Not once did she gather
material in the tree in which her nest was located. With
two exceptions the twigs were all gathered from the same
tree. Working thus off and on for an hour or two at a time,
the bird completed the nest. The third night the Cuckoo
was sitting on the nest at dusk, but after two days she
deserted.
_Eggs._--The yellow-billed cuckoo lays ordinarily three or four
eggs, sometimes only one and rarely five; as many as six, seven, or
even eight eggs have been found in a nest, but these larger numbers
may be the product of more than one female. The eggs vary in shape
from elliptical-oval to oval, oftener nearer the former, and about
equally rounded at both ends. The shell is smooth, but without
gloss. Bendire (1895) says that the “color varies from a uniform
Nile blue to pale greenish blue when fresh, fading out in time to
a pale greenish yellow.” Eggs that I have examined in collections
vary in color from “pale glaucous green” to “pale fluorite green.”
The measurements of 53 eggs average 30.4 by 23 millimeters; the
eggs showing the four extremes measure =34.64= by 23.11, 33.53 by
=25.40=, =27.43= by 22.86, and 29.21 by =20.83= millimeters.
_Young._--The period of incubation is said to be about 14 days; it
is shared to some extent by both sexes, but is probably performed
mainly by the female. The eggs are sometimes laid on succeeding
days, but oftener at more or less infrequent intervals; the young,
therefore, frequently hatch at irregular intervals, and young of
different ages are often found in the nest.
Snyder and Logier (1931) say of a brood of young that they
examined: “The young were quite active when disturbed. They
scrambled about the bush, using the wings and bill for climbing.
One young which was brought to our camp demonstrated a remarkable
reptile-like behaviour. When it was placed on the table and one
reached to pick it up, it erected its somewhat horny plumage and
emitted a buzzing hiss like the sound of bees escaping from a
tunnel in dry grass. This performance was certainly unbirdlike in
all respects.”
Francis H. Allen writes to me: “I found a young one in an open
field on the ground. I was attracted to the spot by its loud
rasping cry. It fluttered along when I approached, but it could
not fly from that position, in rather long grass, though wings
and tail were pretty well fledged. When I picked it up, it pecked
at my finger angrily. It seemed as fierce as a young hawk, and
its rasping cry was probably calculated to inspire terror in its
enemies. I placed the bird on a bough of a Norway spruce, where it
took a characteristic cuckoo attitude and seemed much more at home
than on the ground.”
Dr. Lawrence H. Walkinshaw has sent me some notes on the weights
and development of young yellow-billed cuckoos. One “well-grown”
young was weighed for three days in succession before it left the
nest, at 6 a. m. each morning. It weighed 28.8 grams the first
morning, 31 grams the second, and only 26 grams on the third,
August 6. The interesting point is that the loss of weight came
with the sudden development of the plumage, of which he says:
“When I visited the nest on August 5, at 6 a. m., his feathers
resembled the quills of a porcupine, long and bluish, stretched out
over his wings and back. At 7 p. m., these quills had all opened
and the bird had taken on the resemblance of an adult cuckoo.
Correspondingly, the following morning, he had lost 5 grams in
weight. He left the nest on August 6.”
At another nest a young bird weighed 25 grams on August 25, 27.6
on the 26th, 32.9 on the 27th, and only 28.9 grams on the 28th;
this bird left the nest on August 29, with feathers unsheathed. He
says that during the unsheathing process the young bird dressed
its feathers continually; “the wings, the tail, the scapulars, the
rump, and breast all shared alike, then with the feet he would work
about the head and throat. When hungry he would pause and call a
low _cuk-cuk-cuk-cur-r-r-r-rrr_. If the parent did not come soon,
these calls increased in number. While feeding, his wings would
vibrate rapidly, and after the parent left his call was more of
contentment, a short _curr_, or a _cuk-currrrr_. When excreting, he
simply backed up to the edge of the nest.”
_Plumages._--Bendire (1895) says: “The young when first hatched are
repulsive, black, and greasy-looking creatures, nearly naked, and
the sprouting quills only add to their general ugliness.” This is
a very good description, and the young birds do not improve much
in appearance during the period of early growth. The body is well
covered with the long, pointed feather sheaths until the young bird
is more than half grown. But the sheaths burst, the juvenal plumage
appears, and the young bird is well feathered before the time comes
to leave the nest.
Dr. A. H. Cordier (1923) describes this process very well as
follows:
At the end of seven days the young Cuckoo resembled a
porcupine more than a bird. I now cut the limb holding
the nest and brought it to the ground. Within three feet
of it I then put up the umbrella tent that I might at
close range observe minutely the rapid transition of the
porcupine-looking object into a fully feathered, beautiful
Rain Crow. * * *
The first picture was made at nine o’clock. * * * This
shows the young by the unhatched egg; the horny, sheathed
feathers were fully two inches long, making the bird look
like a porcupine. About ten-thirty the sheaths began to
burst, and with each split a fully formed feather was
liberated. This process took place with such rapidity that
it reminded me of the commotion in a corn popper or a
rapidly blooming flower. All the while I was within three
feet of the bird, and could see every new feather, as it
blossomed, so to speak.
At three p. m., six hours after the first picture was
taken, I made another photograph, showing this same bird in
the full plumage of a Cuckoo, except the long tail.
In this first plumage the young cuckoo looks very much like the
adult, perhaps slightly paler above and with a slight wash of
tawny or pale buff on the throat and breast; but the tail is quite
different, lacking the conspicuous black and white markings so
prominent on the sides of the adult tail; in the young bird the
dark spaces in the tail are not black, but dark gray or lighter
gray, variable in different individuals or in different feathers in
the same individual; the light spaces are not so sharply defined as
in the adult and are grayish white instead of pure white.
The juvenal body plumage appears to be molted in fall, from August
to October; but the juvenal wings and tail are worn through the
first winter at least; I have not been able to detect this plumage
in spring birds, so I suppose that a more or less complete molt
occurs while the birds are in their winter homes, producing a
practically adult plumage before they return in the spring. Adults
have a complete molt between July and October, and possibly a more
or less complete molt in spring before they arrive here, but winter
specimens to show it are lacking.
_Food._--Cuckoos are among the most useful of our birds, mainly
because of their fondness for caterpillars, which are some of our
most injurious insect pests and which constitute the principal food
of these birds during their seasons of abundance. Edward H. Forbush
(1907) writes:
The Cuckoos are of the greatest service to the farmer,
by reason of their well-known fondness for caterpillars,
particularly the hairy species. No caterpillars are safe
from the Cuckoo. It does not matter how hairy or spiny they
are, or how well they may be protected by webs. Often the
stomach of the Cuckoo will be found lined with a felted
mass of caterpillar hairs, and sometimes its intestines
are pierced by the spines of the noxious caterpillars that
it has swallowed. Wherever caterpillar outbreaks occur
we hear the calls of the Cuckoos. There they stay; there
they bring their newly fledged young; and the number
of caterpillars they eat is incredible. Professor Beal
states that two thousand, seven hundred and seventy-one
caterpillars were found in the stomachs of one hundred and
twenty-one Cuckoos--an average of more than twenty-one
each. Dr. Otto Lugger found several hundred small hairy
caterpillars in the stomach of a single bird. The
poisonous, spined caterpillars of the Io moth, the almost
equally disagreeable caterpillars of the brown-tail moth,
and the spiny elm caterpillar, are eaten with avidity.
He says elsewhere (1927):
When, in time, the inside of the bird’s stomach becomes so
felted with a mass of hairs and spines that it obstructs
digestion, the bird can shed the entire stomach-lining,
meanwhile growing a new one. * * * Mr. Mosher, a competent
observer, watched a Yellow-billed Cuckoo eat 41 gypsy
caterpillars in fifteen minutes, and later he saw another
consume 47 forest tent caterpillars in six minutes. * * *
Dr. Amos W. Butler [1897] says that he has known these
Cuckoos to destroy every tent caterpillar in a badly
infested orchard and tear up all the nests in half a day.
This species frequently feeds on or near the ground, and
there gets an enormous number of locusts and other pests.
In summer and autumn it feeds to some extent on small wild
fruits, such as the raspberry, blackberry and wild grape.
The fall webworm is a destructive pest on certain trees, but few
birds will eat it. Dr. Sylvester D. Judd (1902) noted that, on
a Maryland farm, “a pair of yellow-billed cuckoos continually
extracted them from the webs. The destruction of this insect is
an habitual practice with the cuckoo. In a single stomach of the
species examined by Professor Beal there were 325 of the larvæ.”
Henry C. Denslow writes to me that he fed many hairy caterpillars
to a cuckoo that he had in captivity, and says: “Many of these this
bird sheared the hairs from by slowly moving them from end to end
through its beak by a side-shifting motion of the mandibles. The
removed hairs collected in a little bunch and, at the end of the
caterpillar, fell to the floor. Most of the hairs were thus shorn
from these caterpillars. Other caterpillars were swallowed entire,
as I gave them to him, hairs and all.”
Walter B. Barrows (1912) says that this cuckoo feeds freely on
elderberries and mulberries and that “large quantities of beetles
and bugs also are consumed, and both species of cuckoo seem to be
very fond of grasshoppers, eating especially such forms as frequent
shrubbery and trees, among these the destructive tree crickets
(_Oecanthus_). Ten specimens examined by Professor Aughey, in
Nebraska, contained 416 locusts and grasshoppers, and 152 other
insects.”
Audubon (1842) writes: “In autumn they eat many grapes, and I have
seen them supporting themselves by a momentary motion of their
wings opposite a bunch, as if selecting the ripest, when they would
seize it and return to a branch, repeating their visits in this
manner until satiated.”
In addition to those mentioned above, yellow-billed cuckoos
have been known to eat many other insects, such as armyworms,
ants, wasps, flies, and dragonflies. Several of the earlier
ornithologists accused this cuckoo of eating the eggs of other
small birds and produced some evidence of the bad habit, but some
modern observers seem to think that they do very little, if any,
nest robbing. C. J. Maynard (1896) writes:
This species in company with the former [black-billed
cuckoo] are the terror of other small birds during the
nesting season for they will constantly rob their nests.
I have frequently seen a Cuckoo enter a thicket in which
a Robin or a Cat Bird had built a home and in a moment
the air would resound with the shrill cries of distress
given by the parents, causing all the small birds in the
immediate vicinity to rush to the spot and as each joins
in the outcry, the noise produced is apparently enough to
frighten away a bolder bird than a Cuckoo.
But in spite of all this din, the glossy thief nearly
always succeeds in accomplishing his purpose and emerges
from the thicket, carrying an egg impaled on his beak.
He does not always escape unscathed, however, for he is
pursued by a motley crowd consisting of Robins, Cat Birds,
Thrushes, Warblers, etc. that follow him closely, harassing
him on all sides, and some of the more courageous will
even assault him with blows from their beaks so that he
frequently leaves some of his feathers floating in the
wind behind him. As the long and broad tail of the Cuckoo
is a prominent object and as it is also a portion of the
bird which its enemies can seize with comparative safety
to themselves, this member often suffers in these forays,
in so much, that by the middle of summer, it is quite
difficult to find a Cuckoo of either species which has a
full complement of tail feathers.
On the other hand, Major Bendire (1895) says: “I am aware that
this species has been accused of destroying the eggs and even of
eating the young of smaller birds, but I am strongly inclined to
believe that this accusation is unjust, and in my opinion requires
more substantial confirmation. I have never yet had any reason
to suspect their robbing smaller birds’ nests, and the very fact
that they live in apparent harmony with such neighbors, who do not
protest against their presence, as they are in the habit of doing
should a Blue Jay, Grackle, or Crow come too close to their nests,
seems to confirm this view.”
But then he goes on to quote from a letter from William Brewster,
who says: “While I have never seen either of our Cuckoos destroy
the eggs of other birds, nevertheless I think they do it
occasionally. One of my reasons for this belief is that many of our
small birds, Warblers, Sparrows, etc., show great anxiety whenever
the Cuckoos approach their nests, and they pursue and peck at them,
when they take wing, behaving toward them, in fact, exactly as they
do toward the Crows, Jays, and Grackles, which we know eat eggs
whenever they can get a chance. My other reason is that one of my
friends once shot a Cuckoo (_C. americanus_, I think it was) whose
bill was smeared all over with the fresh yolk of an egg.”
Yellow-billed cuckoos sometimes eat tree frogs and other small
frogs, and, in the Southern States, an occasional small lizard.
Marcia B. Clay (1929) relates the following incident: “For an hour
a Cuckoo searched about the dead under limbs of a huge untrimmed
apple tree, peering and gliding noiselessly around and around. At
last, after long and patient search, it dashed to the ground and
began to walk directly toward me through the scant grass and weeds,
and only then did I see a frog trying to slip away unseen. The bird
followed the frog a rod, pecking its victim and gloating softly
_Cuk, Cuk_. Having vanquished its prey, the Cuckoo deftly gathered
it into its bill and flew away, the frog’s legs sticking out stiff
and straight together, exactly like the dead twigs which the Cuckoo
carries to its nest.”
_Behavior._--Mr. Forbush (1927) has described the quiet, retiring
behavior of the yellow-billed cuckoo very well as follows:
The cuckoo is a graceful, elegant bird, calm and
unperturbed; it slips quietly and rather furtively through
its favorite tangles and flies easily from tree to tree in
the orchard, keeping for the most part under protection of
the leaves, which furnish excellent cover for its bronzy,
upper plumage, while the shadows of the foliage tend to
conceal the whiteness of its under parts. It has a way also
of keeping its back with its greenish satiny reflections
toward the intruder in its solitudes, and while holding
an attitude of readiness for flight it sits motionless,
and its plumage so blends with its leafy environment that
it does not ordinarily catch the eye. In the meantime it
turns its head and regards the disturber with a cool,
reserved, direct gaze, looking back over its shoulder,
apparently unafraid and giving no indication of nervousness
or even undue curiosity; but if the observer approaches too
closely, the elegant bird slips quietly away, vanishing
into some leafy, cool retreat where it may enjoy the
silence and solitude, dear to the woodland recluse.
The flight of the cuckoo is rather swift, easy and graceful,
exceedingly direct and horizontal, but turning frequently from
side to side as it threads its way through the branches of the
trees, giving occasional glimpses of its white under parts and the
telltale black-and-white markings in its tail; it is stream-lined
to perfection and glides noiselessly through the air with its long
tail streaming out behind. It is very quiet in its movements in
its shady retreats; it seldom perches in a conspicuous place but
sits motionless for long periods in the dense foliage, watching, or
moves about stealthily in search of its prey. It might easily be
overlooked, were it not for its characteristic notes, which lead
the observer to look for it.
About its nest it is rather shy, while incubating on its eggs,
slipping away cautiously when approached, but when there are young
in the nest its behavior is quite different. It then becomes quite
solicitous and will often remain on the nest until almost touched,
and then perhaps throw itself down to the ground, fluttering
and tumbling along, feigning lameness, after the manner of many
ground-nesting birds, uttering loud, guttural cries of distress.