Bird Gods in Ancient Europe 



is too small for her to enter by, it will be too 

 small for the full-fledged young cuckoo to 

 issue from. The egg is deposited ; later on 

 she returns and removes the eggs of her host. 

 Foster-father and foster-mother wear out their 

 wings and beaks in bringing the young cor- 

 morant food ; it grows bigger and bigger ; 

 one fine day it tries to get out of the nest, and 

 finds that the hole is too small ! 



This frequent tragedy in bird-life accounts 

 for the discovery of dead cuckoos in hollows 

 of trees, for the firm belief still cherished by 

 rustics in parts of Europe that the cuckoo 

 hibernates, and for the further vilification of 

 the poor bird, as slothful, slumbering, torpid 

 — a view naturally reinforced by the observa- 

 tion that the cuckoo seems t^o lazy to build 

 its own nest and rear its own chicks. 



As a matter of fact the European cuckoo 

 lays her eggs at such long intervals apart, from 

 a week to ten days, that she would have great 

 difficulty in rearing a brood. The first chick 



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