170 THE STORY OF BIRD-LIFE. 



selected by this cuckoo to perform her own 

 neglected duties is a species of starling known as 

 the Myna {Eulabetes Javanensis). The peculiarity 

 of this bird is, that both male and female are 

 alike, black, and the young is also black. If the 

 young cuckoo was clad like its mother, the 

 Mynas would promptly kill it on detecting the 

 fraud. Dressed in black, it passes as one of 

 their own, and as such is carefully reared. 



CHAPTER IX. 



MIGRATION. 



The facts of migration are being constantly 

 thrust before us, yet but few do more than 

 dimly realise the marvels that they represent, or 

 that they exist at all. 



Some of us find a passing interest in the an- 

 nouncement by the morning paper, of the ap- 

 pearance of the first swallow or of the cuckoo, 

 but how many are aware of what this means ? 



And yet, as Prof. Newton remarks, we "are 

 brought face to face with perhaps the greatest 

 mystery which the whole animal kingdom presents 

 — a mystery which attracted the attention of the 

 earliest writers, and can in its chief point be 

 no more explained by the modern man of science 

 than by the simple-minded savage or tho poet 

 or prophet of antiquity. Some facts are almost 

 universally known, and have been the theme of 

 comment in all ages and in all lands. The 

 hawk that stretches her wings towards the South 



