Cuckoo Research Articles

Nest-Reuse for the Yellow-Billed Cuckoo in Arkansas

Biology 6:414-420. EITNIEAR, J. 1997. White-collared seedeater (Sporophila torqueola). In: Poole, A., and F. Gill, editors. The birds of North America, No. 278. Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, and American Ornithologists' Union, Washington, D.C. EITNIEAR,J., AND T. RUECKLE. 1995. Successful nesting of the white-collared seedeater in Zapata County, Texas. Bulletin of the Texas Ornithological Society 28:20-21. EMLEN,J. T., AND M.J. DEJONG. 1981. The application of song detection threshold distance to census operations. Studies in Avian Biology 6:346-352. HOWELL, S. N. G., AND S. WEBB. 1995. A guide to the birds of Mexico and northern Central America. Ox-

Confirmation of Infanticide in the Communally Breeding Guira Cuckoo

tics, version 6.12. SAS Institute Inc., Cary, North Carolina. SEARLE, S. R. 1971. Linear models. John Wiley and Sons, New York. WALSBERG, G. E., AND W. W. WEATHERS. 1986. A simple technique for estimating operative environmental temperature. Journal of Thermal Biology 11:67-72. WEATHERS, W. W., AND K. A. SULLIVAN. 1989. Juvenile foraging proficiency, parental effort, and avian reproductive success. Ecological Monographs 59:223-246. WEATHERS, W. W., AND K. A. SULLIVAN. 1993. Seasonal patterns of time and energy allocation by birds. Physiological Zoology 66:511-536. WEBSTER, M. D., AND W. W. WEATHERS. 1989. Validation of single-sample doubly labeled water method. American Journal of Physiology R 256: 572-576. WOOD, R. A., K. A. NAGY, S. MACDONALD, S. T. WAKAKUWA, R. J. BECKMAN, AND H. KAAZ. 1975. Determination of oxygen-18 in water contained in biological samples by charged particle activation. Analytical Chemistry 47:646-650.

Intra- and Interspecific Sequence Variation in a Portion of the Mitochondrial ND6 Gene in Cuckoos

A 474 base pair segment of the NADH dehydrogenase subunit 6 (ND6) mitochondrial gene was sequenced for four cuckoo species (family Cuculidae). To assess the potential of this little-studied gene for intra- and interspecific genetic analyses, we examined sequence variation between (1) individuals from sympatric populations of the Common Cuckoo (Cuculus canorus canorus) collected in Great Britain, (2) two subspecies of Common Cuckoo (C. c. canorus and C. c. telephonus) collected at the geographical extremes of this species' range, and (3) four representative Cuculids: the Common Cuckoo, the Rusty-breasted Cuckoo (Cacomantis sepulcralis), the Fan-tailed Cuckoo (Cacomantis flabelliformis), and Klaas's Cuckoo (Chrysococcyx klaas). Although we found little genetic divergence at the intraspecific level, the substantial amount of interspecific sequence variation indicated that ND6 may be most useful in resolving evolutionary relationships between cuckoo species rather than within species.

Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

(1997). Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The Explicator: Vol. 56, No. 1, pp. 48-50.

Insanity as Redemption in Contemporary American Fiction: Inmates Running the Asylum.

This is an account of how five key novels of the 1960s and 1970s emerged from their culture, taking madness as a key theme. The works concerned are: Catch-22, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Slaughterhouse-5, Being There and Sophie's Choice.

Reclaiming ‘Big Nurse’: a feminist critique of Ken Kesey's portrayal of Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Nurse Ratched or 'Big Nurse' in Ken Kesey's counter-culture novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is one of popular culture's most arresting and memorable images of the nurse. She is, however, deemed to be remarkable primarily for her malice and authoritarianism. This paper argues that such a purely realist reading fails to fully appreciate the significance of the character of Nurse Ratched. A feminist critique of the novel contends that the importance of 'Big Nurse' is less related to how realistic/unrealistic or good/bad she is as a nurse. Nurse Ratched is important because she exemplifies all that traditional masculinity abhors in women, and particularly in strong women in positions of power and influence. This paper explores the stereotype of 'Big Nurse' and argues that Kesey's vision of her ultimate 'conquest' is not a progressive allegory of 'individual freedom', but a reactionary misogyny which would deny women any function other than that of sexual trophy.

The Mixed Heritage of the Chief: Revisiting the Problem of Manhood in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Dans le film « Vol au dessus d'un nid de coucou » mettant en scene des personnages en institution psychiatrique, le personnage du Chef Indien incarne un double probleme issu de son heritage mixte de pere Indien et de mere Blanche. La fracture identitaire qu'il manifeste a travers son discours schizophrenique ramene a une interrogation en ces termes : quelle construction identitaire, et notamment par rapport aux roles sexuels, lorsque le pere, membre d'une minorite ethnique, a ete marginalise par la mere, membre de la culture dominante ?

Soaring beyond the cuckoo's nest: health care reform and ECT.

The importance of ECT in health care reform and in contemporary psychiatric nursing practice has yet to be recognized. To dispel the persistent misconceptions surrounding treatment, mental health educators must implement quality ECT training and nursing into their curriculum. Psychiatric nurses practicing ECT must promote positive attitudes about the treatment and provide educational opportunities for nursing students and continued education for practicing psychiatric nursing personnel.

Under Observation: Life Inside a Psychiatric Hospital

Dozens of images exist that portray psychiatric hospitals. Films such as<i>Bedlam, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Raintree County</i>, and<i>The Snake Pit</i>are all idiosyncratic examples. Even more books have been written about psychiatric hospitals; thankfully, most were never adapted for the screen. Expectedly, they represent the viewpoints of patients as well as staff, are mostly anecdotal, and are less commonly the result of trained or scientific observation. Some portray the sad misfortune and disappointment of patients and families; others are more sanguine. To write about a hospital or any institution suffers from the handicap that personal persuasion carries its own frame of reference, biases, and interpretations. A plumber, carpenter, or painter might have considerable differences in how they view a construction project, but if they are keen and open-minded craftsmen, there should be a general overlap and blending of views. This book about a hospital never before

A Casebook on Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest ed. by George J. Searles

346 WesternAmerican Literature sive and cogent “Historical Essay” proves, however, the most useful of the scholarly elements. Gracefully summarizing the materials, methods and con­ texts surrounding the creation and publication of O Pioneers!, Stouck’s essay captures not only the life ofCather’stext, but also provides insight into Cather’s imagination and artistic process. It demonstrates the unifying energy of Cather’swriting, the wholeness of her art as it develops from the many sources, and the artistic commitment that found its first great expression in Cather’s second “first”novel. This edition may seem immoderate in its level of scholarly detail, but its apparatus does not intrude. Rather, text and context reveal the splendor of O Pioneers! and enrich both the experience and study of Cather’s extraordinary prose. KEVIN A. SYNNOTT The Sage Colleges A Casebook on Ken Kesey'sOne Flew Over The Cuckoo’sNest. Edited by GeorgeJ. Searles. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1992. 209 pages, $27.50.) Casebooks achieved their greatest prominence in America in the 60s as aids for the teaching of the undergraduate research paper and as modes for focus­ ing on the various kinds of activism on our college campuses that characterized the decade academically. Conventionally, such collections defined a subject (e.g., desegregation, the military/industrial complex, the death penalty, The Catcher in the Rye) in historical and philosophical context, identified seminal issues, provided a representative sampling of key essays on the subject, formu­ lated questions for analysis and writing, and supplied a comprehensive bibliog­ raphy. This casebook on Cuckoo’sNestdoes some ofthese things. In lieu ofoffering a historical and philosophical context, the introduction presents a cursory summary of the content of the essays to follow—no study questions. The selection of essays is uneven and far from a broad cross-sampling of major work. Terence Martin’s excellent interpretation from Modem Fiction Studies is in­ cluded, as is Elizabeth McMahan’s strong statement of the feminists’objections to the novel. But four of the fifteen essays are taken from the special double issue of Lex et Scientia, one from Literature and Psychology, one from Literature and Film Quarterly, and one (a cartoon strip) from Mad Magazine, thus one third of the book has a pronounced non-literary or pop-culture bias. One essay is even a kind ofecumenical sermon (from The Christian Century) using Cuckoo's Nest and Slaughterhouse Five as homiletic texts. No material is included from the three scholars who have written critical monographs on Kesey’swork, though they are identified and their books briefly annotated in the bibliography, which is adequate but not as inclusive as its headnote would suggest. I once traded with a bait shop called Fats Tackle Box (Fats didn’t hold with apostrophes),where a commercial fisherman named Buckler would often taunt Fats about his competitor’s business practices. “Old Taylor guarantees his baits, fat man,”he would say. “Are these worms guaranteed?” “Damn right,”Fats would reply. ‘They’re guaranteed to be exactly as good as they are. One hundred percent.”As Buckler chuckled his way out the door, Fats would add, “If they ain’t, you bring ’em back and I’ll double-check ’em for you.” This casebook is guaranteed to be exactly as good as it is. M. GILBERT PORTER University ofMissouri Reviews 347 Ace ofHearts: The Westerns ofZane Grey. ByArthur G. Kimball. (Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1993. 278 pages, $27.50.) The thesis of this confused, contentious, and condescending treatise is that Zane Grey was a writer of romance. It is not, despite the author’s claim, an original idea, but the book’s crippling flaw is its lack of a clear definition of the term, which appears at various times as simple boy-gets-girl love interest, pruri­ ent eroticism, or the high romance ofHugo or Stevenson. Kimball seems almost completely unfamiliar with Grey’s own writings on the subject: his two 1924 American Magazine articles and “My Answer To The Critics,” in The Zane Grey Collector#* (1978). These writings might have helped him locate Grey accurately where Grey himself thought he fit as a writer of romance. They also would have indicated something of Grey...

Turnaround: a memoir

Milos Forman, whose intelligence and artistry lie behind the films Hair, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ragtime and Amadeus, explains that his reason for becoming a film director was his fascination for story-telling which is reflected in the stories contained in this book.

Ecology of the Folivorous Hoatzin (Opisthocomus Hoazin) on the Venezuelan Plains

-The Hoatzin (Opisthocomus hoazin) is the only avian folivore known to have fermentative digestion in the crop. We compare results on nesting, growth, and feeding in Piniero Ranch, Cojedes State, Venezuela, with results from another location in the Venezuelan plains. The Hoatzin nests in trees abundant in the habitat. Nests containing two eggs were predominant. Growth rate of chicks was linear over the nesting period (5.68 g/day). The diet of the Hoatzin consisted of young leaves and twigs of some of the most abundant trees in its habitat. Although there are no reports on the phytochemistry of dietary plants, families to which these plants belong include plants known to contain secondary compounds. The crop, which functions as a mediator in plant-Hoatzin interactions and as a detoxification chamber, deserves further study. Received 4 November 1992, accepted 13 November 1993. THE HOATZIN (Opisthocomus hoazin), a folivorous bird that inhabits riverain forests in South America, is peculiar in many respects. A cooperatively breeding bird, with young having special swimming and climbing abilities (Grimmer 1962), the Hoatzin is the only avian folivore with pre-gastric fermentation (Grajal et al. 1989). The first reports on the Hoatzin date from the 17th century (Hernandez 1651, cited by Strahl 1985), but only in the late 19th and early 20th centuries did more precise anatomical descriptions appear (Young 1888, Boker 1929). The claws on the chick wings (Fig. 1), unlike those in other birds, are functional and of high adaptive value for the young. The Hoatzin is the only species in the family Opisthocomidae (Cuculiformes; Sibley et al. 1988). The Hoatzin nests on branches of trees over water courses, and the incubation of eggs for 30 to 31 days is performed by male and female breeders, and sometimes by nonbreeder helpers of the group (Strahl 1988, Vander Werf and Strahl 1990). We present results that provide comparative data on ecological aspects (nesting, growth, and diet) relevant to the study of the nutritional strategy of the Hoatzin. Such information provides a basis for physiological and microbiological studies that might clarify the evolution of the Hoatzin's unusual fermentative digestion.

Population Dynamic Consequences of Direct and Indirect Interactions Involving a Large Blue Butterfly and its Plant and Red Ant Hosts

Caterpillars of the butterfly, Maculinea rebeli, feed sequentially in flower-buds of Gentiana cruciata and in nests of Myrmica schencki ants, with which they have a sort of'cuckoo bird' relationship. Ants feed them in preference to their own larvae, reducing the production of new workers and hence the colony size the following year. Other Myrmica compete with M. schencki for nest-sites. They adopt caterpillars with equal facility, but fail to rear them to maturity and are consequently less damaged. Using a mathematical model we explore how species interactions can influence the populations of the butterfly, M. schencki, and other Myrmica species. The model assumes a 1 ha square of 900 cells with a fixed population of gentians

The last cuckoo?

The last cuckoo?

Beyond the Cuckoo's Nest: A high school education program.

Beyond the Cuckoo's Nest: A high school education program.

A casebook on Ken Kesey's One flew over the cuckoo's nest

A casebook on Ken Kesey's One flew over the cuckoo's nest

Estimating conspecific nest parasitism in the northern masked weaver based on within-female variability in egg appearance

-The Northern Masked Weaver (Ploceus taeniopterus), like many weavers, exhibits a dramatic degree of intraspecific variability in egg appearance. While the rule is that all eggs within a nest look alike, this rule frequently is violated. By observing marked females laying eggs, I determined that within-female variability in egg appearance is both significantly and substantially lower than the variability seen among eggs laid by different females. Because communal breeding does not occur in this species, and because I ruled out parasitism by heterospecifics, nests containing odd-looking eggs must have been victimized by conspecific nest parasites. Based on the maximum variability in egg appearance observed in nonparasitized clutches, and by noting clutches with peculiar laying sequences that are indicative of parasitism (e.g. two eggs appearing on the same day), I determined the rate of conspecific nest parasitism in the Northern Masked Weaver to be between 22.8% and 34.7%. This is one of the highest rates of conspecific nest parasitism reported for passerines. My results support the conclusion that conspecific nest parasitism is a widespread and common behavior among Ploceus weaverbirds. Received 6 December 1990, accepted 13 January 1992. THE Northern Masked Weaver (Ploceus taeniopterus), like many of its congeners, exhibits a dramatic degree of intraspecific egg-color variability (Mackworth-Praed and Grant 1955, Moreau 1960, Freeman 1988, pers. observ.). Eggs range from dark brown to tan to blue-green. They can be either speckled or immaculate and, if speckled, can have various patterns of speckling. Typically, as in other Ploceus species with variable eggs, all the eggs within a nest look alike, suggesting that eggs produced by individual females do not vary in appearance. Initial support for this conclusion comes from studies of a captive colony of Village Weavers (P. cucullatus; Victoria 1972, Collias 1984); eggs laid over a lifetime by individually marked females varied little in either color or speckling. However, the rule that all eggs within a nest look alike is frequently violated in the Northern Masked Weaver, as well as in other weavers. In a study of Ploceus egg collections, Freeman (1988) found that among 16 species with variable eggs, between 2% and 29% of the nests of a species contained an odd-looking egg. If females produce only one egg type, these oddlooking eggs must have been laid by a brood parasite. Communal nesting is unknown among I Present address: Burke Museum DB-1O, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA. Ploceus species and, in this study of the Northern Masked Weaver, I never observed two females tending to the same nest. Freeman (1988) concluded that the parasites were conspecifics, rather than Chrysococcyx cuckoos, common brood parasites of many tropical Old World passerines, because he found no correlation between the incidence of cuckoo parasitism reported in the literature and the incidence of odd-egg clutches. In addition, Jensen and Vernon (1970) incubated 12 oddly colored eggs they discovered in weaverbird nests, and all of them hatched into weavers of the species in whose nest they were found. Finally, Chrysococcyx cuckoos are relatively unimportant brood parasites of the Northern Masked Weaver (Jackson in press a). Thus, conspecific nest parasitism (CNP) appears to be a common occurrence among Ploceus weaverbirds. Conspecific nest parasitism is now known to be widespread and common in birds. In an extensive review of the phenomenon, Rohwer and Freeman (1989) listed more than 140 species that engage in this behavior. The number known to exhibit this behavior has increased dramatically over the years and is likely to continue growing (see Jackson 1990). This growth is the result of improved detection rather than changes in the rates of CNP. Because in most species there is little variation in egg appearance, either within a nest or between nests, researchers rare-

The Breasts of Big Nurse: Satire versus Narrative in Kesey's "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest"

The Breasts of Big Nurse: Satire versus Narrative in Kesey's "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest"

Terminator 2, Judgment Day

Scientific Editor, British Journal of PsychiatryHow would you feel about a sequel to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, set in the present? I am writing about the next best thing: Terminator 2, subtitled Judgment Day, sequel to the 1984 film Terminator, both starring Arnold Schwarzenegger in the eponymous role. Terminator 2, reputedly the most expensive film ever made, was released last August. Guild, its distributor, expect the film (certificate 15) in the UK to gross £17 million and to be seen by 6 million people, with a similar audience when it is released on video.

Rejection Behavior by Common Cuckoo Hosts Towards Artificial Brood Parasite Eggs

Rejection Behavior by Common Cuckoo Hosts Towards Artificial Brood Parasite Eggs