THE JAY. 317 



eyes open, and one newly hatched with its eyes closed. The first 

 can walk and find its food in a very short time ; the second is help- 

 less in the extreme for many days, and cannot support its own 

 weight. A scientific friend in the United States of North America 

 has asked my opinion of our English account concerning a young 

 cuckoo, which, on the very day that it was hatched, was actually 

 seen retrograding up the side of a hedge sparrow's nest with a 

 young hedge sparrow on its back. After reaching the top, it rested 

 for a moment, and then, with a jerk, threw off its load quite clear of 

 the nest. No bird in the creation could perform such an astound- 

 ing feat under such embarrassing circumstances. The young cuckoo 

 cannot, by any means, support its own weight during the first day of 

 its existence. Of course, then, it is utterly incapable of clambering 

 rump foremost, up the steep side of a hedge sparrow's nest with the 

 additional weight of a young hedge sparrow on its back. Add to 

 this, that an old bird, the young of which are born blind, always 

 remains on the nest during the whole of the day on which the chick 

 is excluded from the shell, in order to protect it. Now, the old 

 hedge sparrow, in the case just mentioned, must have been forced 

 from her nest by the accidental presence of an intruder. Her 

 absence, then, at this important crisis, was quite contrary to her 

 usual economy, for she ought to have been upon the nest. It 

 follows, then, that instinct could not have directed the newly-hatched 

 and blind cuckoo to oust the hedge sparrow, even though it had 

 strength to do so, because the old bird would have been sitting close 

 on the nest, but for the circumstance which forced her from it, 

 namely, the accidental presence of an intruder. The account carries 

 its own condemnation, no matter by whom related or by whom 

 received. I had much rather believe the story of baby Hercules 

 throttling two snakes in his cradle. 



" Parvus erat, manibusque suis Tirynthius angues 

 Pressit, et in cunis jam Jove dignus erat." 



When naturalists affixed the epithet glandarius to the name of the 

 jay, they ought also to have accorded it to the jackdaw, the rook, 

 the carrion crow, and the magpie, not forgetting the pheasant and 

 the ringdove. All these birds feed voraciously on the acorn ; and. 



