BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 151 



gether familiar, never fail to re-excite the old 

 feelings of wonder and admiration which were 

 experienced on first witnessing them. I can safely 

 say, I think, that no man has observed so many 

 parasitical young birds (individuals) being fed 

 by their foster-parents as myself, yet the interest 

 such a sight inspired in me is just as fresh now 

 as in boyhood. And probably in no parasitical 

 species does the strangeness of the spectacle strike 

 the mind so sharply as in this British bird, since 

 the differences in size and colouring between the 

 foster-parent and its false offspring are so much 

 greater in its case. Here nature's unnaturalness 

 in such an instinct — a close union of the beautiful 

 and the monstrous — is seen in its extreme form. 

 The hawk-like figure and markings of the cuckoo 

 serve only to accentuate the disparity, which is 

 perhaps greatest when the parent is the hedge- 

 sparrow — so plainly-coloured a bird, so shy and 

 secretive in its habits. One never ceases to be 

 amazed at the blindness of the parental Instinct 

 in so intelligent a creature as a bird in a case of 

 this kind. Some Idea of how blind it Is may be 

 formed by imagining a case In widely separated 

 types of our own species, which would be a 



K 



