A Monster Cuckoo's Egg. 205 



you have the " survival of the fittest," inasmuch as 

 they survive, and have not undergone some (or many) 

 of the modifications manifested in the others. 



XXIX. 



THE AUSTRALIAN EVIDENCE. 



Mr. John Gould, in his Birds of Australia, gives 

 about a dozen different varieties of the cuckoo as 

 existing there — all of them parasitic. He says : 



"All the Australian species, with the exception of 

 the members of the genus Centropus, are parasitic ; 

 the huge Scythrops, and the diminutive Chrysococcyx 

 alike depositing their eggs in the nests, and entrusting 

 their young to the fostering care of other birds. The 

 Scythrops is said sometimes to lay its egg in the nest 

 of the piping crow {Gymnorhina tibicen), and I have 

 known many instances of the eggs of Chalcites being 

 deposited in the domed-shaped nest of Maluri." 



Cacomantis pallidtis is apparently nearest to our 

 Cuculns canorus ; and its eggs, about seven-eighths of 

 an inch long by five-eighths broad, is of cream colour, 

 and speckled all over with markings of brown. The 

 egg of the monster Scythrops Novce-HollandcB is one 

 inch and eleven-sixteenths long by one inch and a 

 quarter broad, of a light stone colour, with irregular 

 blotches of reddish brown, many of which were of a 

 darker hue, and appeared as if beneath the surface of 

 the shell. Unfortunately, Mr. Gould was not able 

 closely to discriminate the eggs, and expressed the 

 hope that the rising ornithologists of Australia would 

 do it. 



