1 32 OF INSTINCT. Sect. XVI. 13. 5. 



num, like that of the cuckoo, and fuppofes that many other 

 birds may be organized in the fame manner. And, as the fern- 

 owl incubates and hatches her own eggs, he rationally concludes, 

 that this ftruelure of the bird cannot be the caufe of her want 

 of maternal ftorge. Hid. of Selbourn, p. 208. 



As the Rev. Mr. Stafford was walking in Glofop Dale, in the 

 Peak of Derbyihire, he faw a cuckoo rife from its neft. The 

 neft was on the (lump of a tree, that had been foms time felled, 

 among fome chips that were in part turned grev, fo as much to 

 refemble the colour of the bird ; in this neft wer; two young 

 cuckoos : tying a firing about the leg of one of them, he peg- 

 ged the other end of it to the ground, and very frequently for 

 many days beheld the old cuckoo feed thefe young, as he flood 

 very near them. 



The following extract of a Letter from the Rev. Mr. Wilmor, 

 of Morley, near Derby, ftrengthens the truth of the fact above 

 mentioned, of the cuckoo fometimes making a neft, and hatch- 

 ing her own young. 



" In the beginning of July 1792, I was attending fome" la- 

 bourers on my farm, when one of them faid to me, " There is 

 a bird's neft upon one of the Coal-flack Hills -, the bird is now 

 fitting, and is exactly like a cuckoo. They fay that cuckoos 

 never hatch their own eggs, otherwife I fhould have fworn it 

 was one." He took me to the fpot, it was in an open fallow- 

 ground ; the bird was upon the neft, I flood and obferved her 

 fome time, and was perfectly fatisfied it was a cuckoo ; I then 

 put my hand towards her, and (he almoft let me touch her be- 

 fore {he rofe from the neft, which fhe appeared to quit with great 

 uneafinefs, humming over the ground in the manner that a hen 

 partridge does when difturbed from a new hatched brood, and 

 went only to a thicket about forty or fifty yards from the neft j 

 and continued there as long as I ftaid to obferve her, which was 

 not m?.ny minutes. In the neft, which was barely a hole icratch- 

 ed out of the coal flack in the manner of a plover's neft, I ob- 

 ferved three eggs, but did not touch them. As I had labourers 

 conftantly at work in that field, I went thither every day, and al- 

 ways looked to fee if the bird was there, but did not difturb her 

 for feven or eight days, when I was tempted to drive her from 

 the neft, and found two young ones, that appeared to have been 

 hatched fome days, but there was no appearance of the third egg. 

 I then mentioned this extraordinary circumftance (for fuch I 

 thought it) to Mr. and Mrs. Holyoak of Bidford Grange, War- 

 wickshire, and to Mifs M. Willes, who were on a vifit at my 

 houfe, and who all went to fee it. Very lately I reminded Mr. 

 Holyoak of it, who told me he had a perfect recollection of 



the 



