Cuculidæ (Cuckoos)

Group of Scan sores, having a gently-curved, deeply-cleft beak, long-pointed wings, and wedge shaped, pointed tail. The outer toe can be directed forward as well as backward. Peculiar group of birds, noted among other things for their voracity, their eating hairy caterpillars, their Coccygus american us. mimicry of stronger birds of their locality, such as hawks, and for the mode of laying and hatching their eggs. The Old World cuckoos are especially marked by the habit of leaving their eggs to be hatched by other birds. The common European cuckoo ( Cuculus can or us ) is polyandrous, the female seeking several rather indifferent males; her eggs are laid about one per week to the extent of five, each in a different nest of insectivorous birds. The egg resembles in color the others, but is larger, and the young fledgling monopolizes the care of the foster parents. The spotted cuckoo of n. Europe lays four eggs in a nest, usually that of a crow. A small S. African cuckoo, size of a sparrow, is brilliantly colored. Australia has the large channel billed cuckoo, with its immense beak. American cuckoos hatch their own eggs, though they are laid at long intervals and so develop serially. The Road-runner or Chapparal cock of the desert plateaus of w. U. S. feeds mainly on gra hoppers. West Indies and adjacent U. S. has the Ani, with hig high bill, and peculiar in that several females unite in building one nest, where all co-operate in hatching their eggs.