Cuckoo hatched by the Pied Wagtail. 285 



her gigantic supposed offspring from tree to tree, and feed it 

 with her favourite food. This striking and affecting pheno- 

 menon I myself observed, and hundreds besides ; and so 

 anxious was the poor redbreast to satisfy the cravings of her 

 monstrous charge, that she became at length so tame, that she 

 would peck crumbs of bread out of the hand, and, after occa- 

 sionally appropriating a morsel to herself, carry the rest to 

 the cuckoo, who seemed to devour it with great relish. From 

 the mutual attachment exhibited between these two birds, I 

 am perfectly certain that this cuckoo exhibited no inclination 

 to devour its foster-parent. Many naturalists, I am aware, 

 in addition to taxing the cuckoo with cunning, have charged 

 against it this monstrous cruelty ; but it does not appear that 

 it has been ever caught in the act. In the present instance, 

 the parent bird was spared ; for, when the season was far 

 advanced, the cuckoo had disappeared, but the robin con- 

 tinued to frequent her ancient haunts. The male redbreast 

 was not so assiduous in his attentions to the suspicious-look- 

 ing stranger as the female; not (as Mr. Fisher supposed) 

 because he doubted the constancy of his partner, but he 

 seemed wilder, and to possess less of that instinctive love of 

 progeny which is thought to be commonly most intense in 

 the female sex. — William Patrick. Hamilton, Lanarkshire, 

 Jan. 20. 1834. 



The Cuckoo hatched and nurtured by the Pied Wagtail. — 

 In V. 675., I have stated that I had known of the occurrence 

 of three instances of this in the botanic garden at Bury St. 

 Edmunds ; and have promised, in the page cited, to detail, 

 some day, some facts respecting them. I would now state 

 them. First, as this garden, it will be shown, has been often 

 the place of a cuckoo's nativity, it may be well to remark that 

 it is situated in a valley, partially wooded, through which 

 two watercourses pass, and which skirts the town on the 

 east. Now for the instances: — there was one in 1823; in 

 1824 there was another; and, respecting this one, I shall 

 quote the amount of some remarks which I communicated 

 to the Bury Post newspaper respecting it, in which they 

 were published on June 23. 1824. In a plant of ivy which 

 was growing on the western side of an old wall, a wag- 

 tail's nest was discovered on May 21. : it contained five 

 young birds, apparently recently hatched, and a rotten egg. 

 In the next morning, four of the young birds were found lying 

 dead on the rim of the nest : the night had been frosty : 

 one was alive in the nest, and with it the rotten egg. The 

 surviver proved to be, on examination, a cuckoo, being larger, 

 and having longer legs. After some thinking and asking as 



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