The Mystery of the Black-billed Cuckoo 145
this midnight gamboling of short-winged, diurnal (?) brush-birds in the open heavens? He who can answer this question will have solved one of the strangest ornithological problems that has come up in recent years Burroughs, as Mr. Ralph Hoffmann has lately pointed out to me, writes of experiences with Cuckoos very much like mine, and says he believes the birds are quiet largely nocturnal (“Pepacton," pp. 15, [6). He also says that the nocturnal flight-notes may be heard in any part of the [Cuckoo] country, which is what I have suspected, but never had opportunities of proving‘ In fact, my task would be merely to corroborate and call attention to this seemingly neglected statement of Burroughs’s, were it not for the fact that my own experience brings a strong additional element of mystery to the case; namely, the great height and evident protractedness of the flights. For, granted that the Cuckoo actually is a nocturnal bird, which moves about freely from one feeding~place to another in the nighttime (and this would mean that its life-history is still all to learn), how are we to account for the height and length and regularity of the flights? Flights from tree to tree, or from copse to copse, would be legitimate enough: but these long, celestial (l) journeys are quite incomprehensible.
Nocturnal the birds certainly must be, at the least of it Aside from the evidence already adduced, their large, dark eyes and peculiarly quiet and elusive day'time habits favor this hypothesis So at least it seems to me:— perhaps I am going too fast, But whatever the final verdict on this point may be, it is certain that our New Hampshire Cuckoos (or their departed spirits!) are given to traveling about through the still air of night, high over woods and lakes and mountains. To the uninitiated this will sound like nonsense; but let any ornithologist who is in the least danger of ever spending summer nights afield in southern New Hampshire beware of committing himself to skepticism on the subject.
The field of ornithology, even here in thrice-thrashedeout New Eng» land, is still full of untarnished wonders and surprises
