CUCKOO. 305 



distance of twenty yards. I was about to fire when, 

 over my head sailed another with something between 

 its mandibles. My curiosity was excited, and, leaving 

 the other to speed on its way, I followed in the boat the 

 flying cuckoo which I saw alight in an adjoining 

 meadow. I reached the bird within twenty yards, and 

 observed it in the act of progressing in a similar way to 

 the crawling of a parrot, by the side of a drain, with the 

 substance still in its beak; after traversing some 

 distance it stopped short, and at the same time I 

 fired. Upon nearing it, I found the substance, before- 

 mentioned, to be its egg, I am sorry to say, broken, but 

 still it was quite satisfactory to me that such was the case. 

 Upon dissection I found the cloaca contained another 

 egg of nearly the same size, but without the calcareous 

 envelope. I think, in all probabihty, this bird was 

 searching for a nest, perhaps that of the meadow pipit, 

 for the depositing of its egg.'' The curious habit of the 

 young cuckoo of clearing the nest of all rival inmates, 

 thus gaining for itself the sole attention of its fond 

 but deluded foster parents, has been too often described 

 from the careful observations of Jenner, Montagu, 

 Yarrell, Stanley, and many others, to need repetition 

 here; but Mr. Gould (Birds of Great Britain) has 

 propounded a theory of his own on this subject, opposed 

 altogether to Dr. Jenner's experience and the opinions 

 of naturalists generally. Doubting the power of the 

 young cuckoo to clear the nest of its other occupants 

 by the end of the thu-d day, he says — "May we 

 not more readily imagine that it has been done 

 by the foster parents, who, having bestowed all 

 their attention on the parasite, thus cause the 

 death of their own young, which are then cleared 

 out of the nest in the same way as broken egg-shells, 

 feeces, and other estraneous matters ?" The same 

 author also refers to some highly interesting remarks 

 2 E 



