A GAY DECEIVER 



THE drongo cuckoo {Surnicuhcs lugubris) is 

 a bird of which I know practically nothing. 

 I doubt whether I have ever seen it in the 

 flesh. It is, of course, quite unnecessary to 

 apologise for discoursing upon a subject of which one's 

 knowledge is admittedly nil. In this superficial age the 

 most successful writers are those most ignorant of their 

 subject. When you know only one or two facts it is 

 quite easy to parade them properly, to set them forth to 

 best advantage. They are so few and far between that 

 there is no danger of their jostling one another or be- 

 wildering the reader. Then, if you are conversant only 

 with one side of a question, you are able to lay down 

 the law so forcibly, and the public likes having the law 

 laid down for it, it does not mind how crude, how absurd, 

 how impossible one's sentiments are so long as one is 

 cocksure of them and is not afraid to say so. 



My lack of knowledge of the habits of the drongo 

 cuckoo is, however, not my chief reason for desiring to 

 write about it. I wish to discuss the bird because 

 natural selectionists frequently cite it as bearing striking 

 testimony to the truth of their theory, whereas it seems 

 to me that it does just the opposite. Stcrniculus lugubris 

 is, so far as I am able to judge, an uncompromising 

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