5b Barrett, Parasitical Habits in tlic Cucitlidce. I ,^j ™Ocu 



History of Selborne," are full of interest still. White mentions 

 that the European Cuckoo {C. canorus) is a summer migrant, 

 appearing in his garden early in the month of April each year, 

 and the whole of one letter, dated from Selborne, 19th February, 

 1770, is devoted to a consideration of the habits of the mysterious 

 stranger. 



Daines Barrington,a wealthy and aristocratic young naturalist, 

 had written to the Rev. Mr. White, asserting that the Cuckoo 

 did not deposit her q^^ indiscriminately in the first nest she came 

 across, but, on the contrary, searched out the home of a bird 

 whose natural food was to some extent similar to her own, and 

 therefore a desirable foster-parent for the prospective baby 

 Cuckoo. White, in reply, said that the idea was quite new to 

 him, and that, after giving much thought to the subject, he had 

 come to the conclusion that the hypothesis was reasonable 

 enough, as, personally, he could not remember ever having 

 witnessed a young Cuckoo being tended by any but soft-billed 

 insectivorous birds. He adds, very quaintly, that the depositing 

 of its eggs by the Cuckoo in another bird's nest is such a mon- 

 strous outrage on maternal affection that, had it been related of a 

 bird in the Brazils, or Peru, it would not have merited belief. 

 On the 8th October, 1770, the observant old naturalist again 

 writes, this time from Ringmer, in Sussex, to the effect that he 

 has just seen a young Cuckoo in a Lark's nest, and that it was 

 very pugnacious, pursuing his finger and buffeting and sparring 

 with its wings like a game cock. I have often noticed this bad- 

 tempered disposition myself amongst our Victorian species, and 

 it seems to be quite in accordance with the general nature of the 

 birds as a class. 



Coming to more recent times, we find Charles Darwin, in his 

 chapter on instinct in the " Origin of Species," throwing the 

 searchlight of his genius into the dark corners of the Cuckoo 

 problem. Variation and natural selection, the great naturalist 

 considers, have undoubtedly been the main factors in building 

 up the parasitical instinct which we see working in all its horrible 

 perfection to-day. Let it be supposed, for instance, that an early 

 progenitor of our lovely little shining Bronze-Cuckoo [Chalco- 

 coccyx plagosus) occasionally departed from the natural order of 

 things, and deposited one of her tiny eggs in the nest of some 

 other species of bird, either accidentally or by reason of being 

 compelled to lay before her own nest was completed, just as to- 

 day we frequently find the pale blue eggs of Starlings and 

 Mynahs scattered about the open fields or on our suburban 

 lawns. If we conceive, further, that the ^^^ thus consigned to 

 its fate in an alien nest has duly brought forth a baby Cuckoo, 

 which, being reared by the foster-parents, has unconsciously 

 acquired, during the nestling period, a predilection for the com- 

 pany of its foster-parents and their kind, is it not probable that 



