Food of the young Cuckoo. 297 



the preceding notices of certain of the details of the pheno- 

 mena of the cuckoo's being hatched and reared by foster- 

 parents, we have allowed the opinion to appear that the 

 foster-parents are not capable to distinguish the egg of a 

 cuckoo from an egg of their own, nor the young of the cuckoo 

 from the young of themselves ; and that their incubating the 

 egg of the cuckoo, and their rearing the young cuckoo which 

 they had hatched from that egg, are deeds performed in undis- 

 tinguished and unqualified obedience to that impulsive instinct 

 which, founded within them, and within every species of 

 being, impels in every species a love of its own kind, and the 

 exercise of the means of reproducing and nurturing it. How- 

 ever, in VI. 83., a fact has been communicated, by the dis- 

 tinguished by Mr. Ensor, which disagrees with this view, and 

 should be coupled with it : — " In my neighbourhood [Ar- 

 dress], a tenant's son found a cuckoo in a [titlark's] nest. 

 He brought it home, and fed it on potatoes and oatmeal 

 dough. In a few days, two wrens, who had a nest with eight 

 eggs in the eaves, and just above the window fronting the 

 cage in which the cuckoo was placed, made their way through 

 a broken pane, and continued to feed it for some time. The 

 cage was small ; and the boy, preferring a thrush to the 

 cuckoo, took it away, to give greater room to the thrush. 

 On this, the wrens repaired to their own nest, and brought 

 out the eggs that had been laid. This is very curious, and 

 seems like fascination : to leave their own nest, and abandon 

 their progeny in their incipient state, to feed a stranger, and, 

 to them, a monster." In IV. 270., and VIII. 283. and 284., 

 are related instances of foster-parents of young cuckoos 

 catering for them, and feeding them, after they had left the 

 nest, and could fly ; and we believe that they do this in well 

 nigh every instance; but, then, they, when unencumbered 

 with the charge of maintaining a young cuckoo, do the same 

 thing to their own young : and, hence, this may be set down 

 as but the exercise of an instinctive habit. 



Upon what Materials of Food is the young Cuckoo fed, from 

 the Time it is hatched, until the Time at which it obtains its 

 own Living ? — The answer to this question may be best 

 deduced from considering the following facts : — Of the spe- 

 cies of birds which are noted in p. 288. and p. 292. as known 

 to have reared the cuckoo, the following are termed by natu- 

 ralists insectivorous birds ; the pied wagtail, the titlark, the 

 rocklark, the hedge-chanter, the redstart, the robin, the wren, 

 and the whitethroat: and these granivorous; the skylark, 

 the yellowhammer, the greenfinch, the linnet, and the reed 

 bunting. Naturalists admit that some of the above-named 

 Vol. VIII. — No. 49. x 



