beginning of July 1792, I was attending some labourers on my farm,
when one of them said to me, "There is a bird's nest upon one of the
Coal-slack Hills; the bird is now sitting, and is exactly like a cuckoo.
They say that cuckoo's never hatch their own eggs, otherwise I should have
sworn it was one." He took me to the spot, it was in an open fallow ground;
the bird was upon the nest, I stood and observed her some time, and was
perfectly satisfied it was a cuckoo; I then put my hand towards her, and
she almost let me touch her before she rose from the nest, which she
appeared to quit with great uneasiness, skimming over the ground in the
manner that a hen partridge does when disturbed from a new hatched brood,
and went only to a thicket about forty or fifty yards from the nest; and
continued there as long as I staid to observe her, which was not many
minutes. In the nest, which was barely a hole scratched out of the
coal-slack in the manner of a plover's nest, I observed three eggs, but did
not touch them. As I had labourers constantly at work in that field, I went
thither every day, and always looked to see if the bird was there, but did
not disturb her for seven or eight days, when I was tempted to drive her
from the nest, and found _two_ young ones, that appeared to have been
hatched some days, but there was no appearance of the third egg. I then
mentioned this extraordinary circumstance (for such I thought it) to Mr.
and Mrs. Holyoak of Bidford Grange, Warwickshire, and to Miss M. Willes,
who were on a visit at my house, and who all went to see it. Very lately I
reminded Mr. Holyoak of it, who told me he had a perfect recollection of
the whole, and that, considering it a curiosity, he walked to look at it
several times, was perfectly satisfied as to its being a cuckoo, and
thought her more attentive to her young, than any other bird he ever
observed, having always found her brooding her young. In about a week after
I first saw the young ones, one of them was missing, and I rather suspected
my plough-boys having taken it; though it might possibly have been taken by
a hawk, some time when the old one was seeking food. I never found her off
her nest but once, and that was the last time I saw the remaining young
one, when it was almost full feathered. I then went from home for two or
three days, and, when I returned, the young one was gone, which I take for
granted had flown. Though during this time I frequently saw cuckoos