THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF PARASITICAL 
HABITS IN THE CUCULIDAi.* 
[With 2 plates.] 
By C. L. Barrett, Melbourne. 
For nearly two thousand years certain remarkable habits of the 
family Cuculide have exercised the minds of naturalists and philoso- 
phers. The origin of these habits has remained hidden behind an 
impenetrable veil of mystery, which is only now being slowly and 
patiently lifted by means of the observations and researches of a 
number of ornithologists in different parts of the world. The first 
actual record which has come to us out of the past of the unusual ways 
of these strange birds is contained in a scientific treatise written by 
one Aélian, a Latin author, who flourished during the second century. 
In this ancient monograph it is stated that the cuckoo always lays 
her eggs in the nests of other birds, being too indolent to undertake 
the care of her own offspring. 
We do not find many other important references to the cuckoo 
until the time of Gilbert White, the famous old naturalist-parson of 
Selborne, whose charming series of letters on the wild life in his 
Hampshire home, known to us as “ The Natural History of Sel- 
borne,” are full of interest still. White mentions that the European 
cuckoo (C. canorus) is a summer migrant, appearing in his garden 
early in the month of April each year, and the whole of one letter, 
dated from Selborne, February 19, 1770, is devoted to a consideration 
of the habits of the mysterious stranger. 
Daines Barrington, a wealthy and aristocratic young naturalist, 
had written to the Reverend Mr. White, asserting that the cuckoo did 
not deposit her egg indiscriminately in the first nest she came across, 
but, on the contrary, searched out the home of a bird whose natural 
food was to some extent similar to her own and therefore a desirable 
foster parent for the prospective baby cuckoo. White, in reply, said 
that the idea was quite new to him, and that, after giving much 
thought to the subject, he had come to the conclusion that the 
2 Reprinted by permission of The Emu, Melbourne, vol. 6, 1906-7, pp. 55-60. 
45745°—sm 190932 487 
