THE CUCKOO AND HIS KINDRED. 127 



desire for food, causing him to neglect the female, 

 who is said to be compelled to wander far and wide 

 to insure the fertilization of her eggs ! The theory 

 of gluttony is untenable, illogical, absurd. For 

 instance, if the male be a glutton, and so voracious 

 as to neglect even the sexual passion — one of the 

 strongest passions throughout organic life — why 

 is not the female equally so ? Again, the very fact 

 that the male Cuckoo has a peculiar cry or love 

 song, and which he is most pertinacious in uttering 

 — as an invitation to tlie female he is said so sadly 

 to ignore — is a most convincing proof that his 

 sexual instincts are by no means dormant nor 

 sluggish ones. \x. appears to the present writer 

 that the theory was invented to explain the 

 assumed preponderance of males over females, by 

 suggesting that the latter were the prepotent sex, 

 and as a result of such unequally balanced sexual 

 instincts, according to a well-known natural law, 

 the male offspring" are more numerous than the 

 female offspring. That the Cuckoo is a voracious 

 feeder is tolerably well known to most naturalists, 

 its food being quickly digested, but both sexes are 

 equally ravenous. I am disposed, however, to 

 regard this voracity in the young bird as a tact of 

 much greater significance. 



