Mistress Cuckoo 
one would say anything, because we don’t hap- 
pen to like butcher-birds. As a matter of fact, 
our judgments of these things are all warped by 
personal feelings. Doubtless the only tenable 
ground is that, from a bird’s point of view, all 
that he wants and can get is legitimate prey. 
Yet, despite all logic, we shall continue to 
believe that such conduct in any bird is some- 
how against Nature, and rascally; and we 
can never feel that modesty and theft, gen- 
tleness and murder, are consistent elements of 
character. 
The other serious charge against the cuckoo 
is quite as criminal as the first, but, upon ex- 
amination, admits of a far better excuse. 
A bird’s parental instincts are one of the 
most beautiful aspects of its nature, and estab- 
lish a closer bond of sympathy in mankind 
than any other characteristic. But, when we 
find the cuckoo coolly depositing one egg in 
one nest, and another egg in another nest, of 
other birds, thus shirking all the maternal re- 
sponsibilities and felicities, it seems a more fla- 
grant exhibition of heartlessness than sapping 
the potential life out of inanimate eggs, and as 
unnatural as even the destruction of the young 
of other species. But the ground of such ab- 
105 
