Word: cuckoos
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Even the most naive European spectator of an American film . . . knows when Hollywood is giving him a conducted tour to Cloud-Cuckoo-Land. But he compares his native Cloud-Cuckoo-Land with the American version, usually to the advantage of the American version...
...When bird nesting in Bihar [India]," he writes, "I was strolling alongside a high, dense cactus hedge when my attention was drawn to a bird [female cuckoo] flying up from behind over my head and settling on the ground about 25 paces beyond me. I ran up to within about ten paces, screened from her sight by a bush, and then saw she was sitting quietly on a small mound, back to me and quite motionless. Presently I saw her put her head down and her shoulders heave, as if she were being sick, and then immediately...
Ornithologist Baker's interest in cuckoos began rather dramatically. "I was a very small boy," he writes, "when I found my first Cuckoo's egg in a Hedge-Sparrow's nest in a Norfolk lane. [It was] a red letter day which synchronized with my first attempt to read The Origin of Species. Since then I have been filled with interest in Cuckoo's eggs and Evolution...
...cuckoo problem that most deeply engrosses Ornithologist Baker and others is: How does the cuckoo get the egg into the nest? This problem is posed by the fact that some wise birds build nests with obstructive entrances for the express purpose of keeping out cuckoos. The cuckoo has developed several methods for outwitting these isolationists. Cuckooists recognize a First, Second and Third Method. In the First Method the cuckoo simply squats down and lays her egg. The Second Method is somewhat more complicated, comes into play when the cuckoo is momentarily baffled by a nest built in a hollow tree...
...extremely rare Third Method, a kind of fourth dimension among cuckoo problems, that is still controversial. The Third Method is used when a cuckoo encounters a nest with a very small or tortuous entrance. Unable to squat or cling, the cuckoo flutters to the ground, lays an egg, is thought by some to swallow it, then poke her long bill and neck into the nest opening, and regurgitate...