A countryman told me he had found a young fern-owl in the nest of
a small bird on the ground; and that it was fed by the little bird. I
went to see this extraordinary phenomenon, and found that it was a
young cuckoo hatched in the nest of a titlark; it was become vastly
too big for its nest, appearing
... in tenui re
Majores pennas nido extendisse ...
and was very fierce and pugnacious, pursuing my finger, as I teased
it, for many feet from the nest, and sparring and buffeting with its
wings like a game-cock. The dupe of a dam appeared at a distance,
hovering about with meat in its mouth, and expressing the greatest
solicitude.
In July I saw several cuckoos skimming over a large pond; and
found, after some observation, that they were feeding on the
libellulae, or dragon-flies; some of which they caught as they
settled on the weeds, and some as they were on the wing.
Notwithstanding what Linnaeus says, I cannot be induced to
believe that they are birds of prey.
This district affords some birds that are hardly ever heard of at
Selborne.
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