Observations on the Cuckoo. 465 
_ string about the leg of one of them, he pegged 
the other end of it to the ground, and very 
frequently for many days beheld the old cuce- 
koo feed these her young, as he stood very 
near them.” That Mr. Stafford must have 
been mistaken needs scarcely to be insisted on, 
since Mr. Jenner has shewn, that when two 
young cuckoos happen to be hatched in the 
same nest, the stronger invariably turns out 
the weaker. The nest which Mr. Stafford 
found, from the number of young it contained, 
most probably belonged to a goatsucker, as I 
know that this species, which seldom lays 
more than two or three eggs, breeds in the 
neighbourhood of Glossop; and it might ea- 
sily be mistaken for acuckoo, by a person not 
very familiar with birds, who had only an op- 
portunity of observing it at a distance. If 
this gentleman had been a good ornitholo- 
gist, would he not have endeavoured to remove 
every possibility of doubt in a matter which, it 
is evident, greatly excited his interest, by 
examining and describing the structure of the 
feet of these young birds? 
Male cuckoos, a short time before they re- 
tire, entirely lose their cry, and this loss is 
generally preceded by stammering and a dif- 
ficulty of utterance. Now as most of our 
singing birds become mute in autumn, solely 
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