The Common Cuckoo may be regarded as the most flighty, restless, and lively member of this sprightly family; from morning till night he is constantly on the move, and is as hungry as he is active and clamorous. His flight is light, elegant, somewhat resembling that of a Falcon; but no sooner has his journey come to an end, than he alights on a thick branch of the nearest tree, and at once begins to look about him in search of food. Should an attractive morsel be in sight, he swoops upon it in an instant, and having caught and devoured it, by a stroke or two of his powerful wings he again returns to the branch he has just quitted, or else flies off to a neighbouring tree, immediately to repeat the same performance. It is, however, only in his powers of flight that the Cuckoo is eminently gifted; he walks upon the ground with difficulty, and is quite unable to climb. In spring-time he is indefatigable in making heard his well-known notes, "Cuckoo, cuckoo," which occasionally he will change to a softly-uttered "Quawawa," or "Haghaghaghag," while the voice of the female somewhat resembles a peculiar laugh or gentle twitter, but poorly represented by the syllables "Kwikwikwik." It was well-known, even to ancient writers, that the female Cuckoo, instead of building a nest for the reception of her progeny, lays her eggs in the nests of other birds, to whom she altogether entrusts the rearing of her young ones. "The Cuckoo," says Aristotle, "deputes the incubation of her eggs and the nurture of the young ones to which they give birth to the bird in whose nest the eggs happen to be laid. The foster-father, as we are told, throws his own offspring out of their nest and leaves them to die of hunger, while he devotes himself entirely to providing for the young Cuckoo. Others say that he kills his own nestlings to feed the young intruder with their bodies, the young Cuckoo being so beautiful that even the mother who owns the nest despises and sacrifices her own brood on his behalf. Narrators, however, are not quite agreed as to who is the real destroyer of the young birds; some say that it is the old Cuckoo who comes back again to eat the little family of the too hospitable pair, while others assert that it is the young Cuckoo who casts out of the nest all his foster brothers and sisters, leaving them to die of starvation, while others again declare that the young Cuckoo, being the strongest, kills and devours all the rest." "In thus providing for his children," continues Aristotle, "the Cuckoo does quite right, for he knows what a coward he is, and that he would never be able to defend them; indeed, so cowardly is he that all the little birds amuse themselves by pinching and pecking at him."