" Animal Intelligence ! " 123 



Mr. Darwin and Mr. Romanes, for one thing, might 

 have done far more for the science they loved so well 

 had they devoted almost half-a-year at the proper 

 season to the study of the cuckoo and nothing else, 

 not forgetting the problem of the young cuckoos left 

 behind, to stay on at least a month after the old 

 cuckoos have migrated — one of the most wonderful 

 things about the species — and, taken along with some 

 other things, makes them wholly unique ; and yet on 

 this point, as well as on some others, neither of these 

 great authorities says a single word, though they both 

 close as though once for all they had settled the 

 whole mystery of the cuckoo and left nothing unmet. 

 Evolution, as they lay it down, is taken to exhaust 

 the whole thing — to us, even after evolution has done 

 its very best in their able hands, the mysteries not 

 only remain, but are increased. To increase the 

 mystery about a very familiar bird is not, surely, the 

 true end of science — evolutionist science ! 



In Animal Intelligence, p. 307, Mr. Romanes quotes 

 the first part of the passage we have given from the 

 Origin of Species on the cuckoo, and he actually adds 

 a note to the passage thus : 



" Allusion is here made to the fact that the cuckoo 

 lays her eggs at intervals of two or three days, and, 

 therefore, that if all were incubated by the mother, 

 they would hatch out at different times — a state of 

 things which actually obtains in the case of the 

 American cuckoo, whose nest contains eggs and young 

 at the same time.'' 



As though this were such an exceptional fact in 

 bird-history as to justify this wonderful note. Both 

 Mr. Darwin and Mr. Romanes unfortunately (as we 



