The British Naturalist. 63 



ciibation in a cuckoo's nest, and never have detected one little bird in the 

 act of feeding a cuckoo, either in the nest or out of it. We do not say 

 that these matters cannot, or even that they do not, happen ; we merely say, 

 that we have never seen them. When we enter upon study where there 

 are facts to appeal to, we must really be on our guard against names, 

 however eminent, or however deservedly they may be so." (p. 131.) 



Again : — 



" We are not denying the common theory of the cuckoo; but we repeat, 

 that in the course of a great deal of observation, we have not met with a 

 single fact which could not be fully and perfectly explained, upon the 

 hypothesis which the anatomy of the cuckoo, and the analogy of all the 

 rest of the feathered tribes suggests ; namely, that the cuckoo often takes 

 possession of the nests of other birds, either after these had quitted them, 

 or after it had made a meal of the eggs, and then performs all the incuba- 

 tion and nursing itself." (p. 134.) 



We must leave our readers to form their own opinions, or, 

 we would rather say, to institute their own experiments, on 

 this curious subject; reminding them, that the only infallible 

 method of arriving at the truth, and setting the question at 

 rest, is a close attention to the facts which Nature herself 

 presents. For " denying without proof, in natural history, is 

 just as bad as asserting without proof." 



Some very interesting remarks on the habits and man- 

 ners of " the crow tribe" occur at p. 154, &c. ; but they are 

 too long for extraction, and we must refer our readers to 

 the work itself: just recording our opinion, as we pass, in 

 unison with that of the author, that " probably the good that 

 is done by the whole race more than counterbalances the 

 evil ; and experience has shown that with the rook this is really 

 the case." 



That most extraordinary, thrilling, vibratory noise (we 

 scarcely know what else to call it) which is emitted by some 

 species of woodpecker, especially the smaller or spotted 

 kinds, and which, familiar as it is to our ears, we yet never 

 hear without stopping to listen in astonishment, is, with great 

 probability, we think, considered by the British Naturalist as 

 the love-note of the bird.* We are led to this opinion by 

 the circumstance of our almost invariably hearing the sound 

 near our own residence, for a short period in the spring 

 (March and April), and never, to the best of our recollec- 



* Linnaeus, if we understand his meaning right, seems to intimate that 

 this noise is made by the woodpecker for the purpose of frightening the 

 insects, and causing them to come forth from the wood. This, however, 

 we very much doubt. As the birds destroy timber-boring insects, and 

 never pierce perfectly sound wood, they may be considered beneficial 

 animals, and ought not to be unjustly proscribed, as they often are, 

 on account of the supposed injury they do to timber. " Pici larvas insec- 

 torum lignum intus rodentium, rostro secante, sono stridulo terrefaciente, 

 auditu percipiente, lingua acuta hastata intrante extrahunt, injuste pro- 

 scripti." {Systema Natures.) 



