RUE WITH A DIFFERENCE loi 



remember what a strange and striking event the 

 rearing of a young cuckoo must be in the life of a 

 small bird, at least the first time it occurs. The 

 smell, also, would not be that of its own species, so 

 that there would be more than appearance to distin- 

 guish it. In fact, the thing having been peculiar, 

 the feelings aroused by it may have been stronger, 

 in which case the memory might be stronger too, 

 and revive these feelings, or, at least, it might 

 arouse some sort of emotion, possibly of a vague 

 and indistinct kind. Smell is powerful in calling 

 up associations, and I speculate upon the possibility 

 of its doing so, here, because the plumage of the 

 young cuckoo, when it left its foster-parents, would 

 have been different to that in which it must return 

 to them. However, these are dreams. There is 

 certainly much hostility on the part of small birds 

 to the cuckoo, but perhaps it is just possible that 

 Vun rCempeche pas r autre. 



The cuckoo, when thus mobbed and annoyed, is 

 supposed to be mistaken for a hawk. But do 

 his persecutors fear him, as a hawk } My opinion 

 is that they do not, and that even though they 

 may begin to annoy him, under the idea that he 

 is one, they very soon become aware, either that 

 he is not, or, at least, that they need not mind 

 him if he is. It is even possible that small 

 birds may, long ago, have found out the difference 

 between a hawk and a cuckoo, but that the habit, 

 once begun, continues, so that it is, now, as 

 much the thing to mob the one as the other. Be 

 this as it may, I do not think that hawks suffer 

 from this sort of annoyance, to anything like the 



