82 BIRDS OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. 



The food consists almost entirely of insects, many of 

 which the bird catches on the wing ; in autumn it appears 

 to take a few berries. 



The egg varies a good deal in appearance, but it is an 

 error to sa,y that the bird has the power to assimilate 

 it, as to colour, with that of the eggs in the nest where she 

 places it, and it is a wonder liow such a statement can 

 iiavebeen made, in the first instance, unless a double-yolked 

 egg was mistaken for one laid by a cuckoo. 



It is well known, of course, tliat the cuckoo docs not 

 incubate her own eggs, and that the young of the bird on 

 which she has intruded are not reared ; but is it correct to 

 suppose that the young cuckoo wilfully destroys them ? The 

 fact of their perishing is easily accounted for by the 

 superior size, strength, voracit}'^, and activity of the change- 

 ling ; but to credit the latter with their deliberate murder 

 by hoisting them up on his back and tossing them out of 

 the nest is so absurd that it is a wonder how it can have 

 gained credit. 



The notion was first promulgated by " Vaccination " 

 .lenner, but that worthy had been imposed upon by a nephew 

 whom he had set to watch; for the young fellow was idle, 

 and went off amusing himself, afterwards inventing the 

 tale, which his uncle accepted, and subsequently related to 

 the Royal Society as the result of his own actual experience. 

 Afterwards the youth confessed the imposture, which is, 

 nevertheless, credited by many so-called naturalists of the 

 present day, whom no amount of evidence would convince 

 that what they have accepted as the truth is nothing but a 

 clumsy fable. 



The cuckoo, however, is a veritable ornithological puzzle, 

 for in addition to the stories about its young, it is said to 

 swallow its foster-parents, and to lay but one egg, not to 

 .speak of its being credited with spoiling the horticulturist's 



