“The cuckoo is at least as large as a turtle-dove,” their uncle continued. “Its plumage is ashy gray on the back and white underneath, with numerous brown crosswise stripes resembling those seen on many birds of prey. The wings are long, as is also the tail, which is spotted and tipped with white. Despite its likeness to the goshawk and sparrow-hawk, the cuckoo is not to be classed as a bird of prey. Its talons lack the necessary strength, and its beak, which is rather long, is flattened and only slightly curved. Those are neither the hooked claws nor the savage beak of a bird living the life of a murderer. The cuckoo’s food consists entirely of insects and caterpillars. You remember the processionaries of the oak tree, those frightful black caterpillars that spin large silken nests against the trunk of a tree and bristle with barbed hairs that cause such terrible itching if you touch them?” “Yes,” answered Jules; “and you told us that the cuckoo eats those caterpillars.” “It feasts on them, as it does on all hairy caterpillars; but the hairs are rolled up into a ball in the stomach and thrown up through the beak. As a greedy devourer of insects and caterpillars the cuckoo deserves protection; the only regret is that a multitude of little birds most useful to us should be destroyed by it. Let us consider the facts of the case. “The female cuckoo never builds a nest, nor does she know how to hatch out her own young; but let us plead the best excuse we can for her. Her breast seems to be so formed as not to impart enough warmth to eggs to make them hatch; and, more than that, she lays so often throughout the summer as to leave her no time for making a home of her own. In short, this bird never knows the joy of taking care of her young. It is not because she will not hatch her own eggs, but because she cannot. She has to leave this work to other birds.” “Then the cuckoo’s egg I found in the garden nest was left there for the warbler to take care of?” Jules inquired.