Alluring Mouths •
It has often been noticed and said that the interior of a young cuckoo mouth is of a brilliant orange tint ; and this is held to be one of t reasons why birds cannot refrain from feeding it, when it gapes for fo This may be true ; but the method of attraction is not peculiar to t cuckoo. It is pointed out in a very pleasing and ingenious book (B! Wild and Free, by A. W. P. Robertson. The Bodley Head) that the you hedge-sparrow also has an orange gape ; and of course the hedge-sparro (or accentor) is one of the favourite victims. The mother bird finds familiar colour in the intruder. The inner mouth of most young bir I should say, is brightly tinted, and this may very well stimulate parental desire to feed which is singularly strong in both cock and he They quite commonly feed strange children as well as their own. 0 particular example brought to my notice is the mothering of you active wagtails by a robin, watched daily on a lawn.
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