The Cuckoo 309 



do so before the young ones, for they leave the latter to 

 shift for themselves. Whether they display the same 

 indifference throughout to the fate of their offspring is also 

 not known for certain, but many good ornithologists 

 believe that they do not forget them, and that the female 

 bird watches over the welfare of her young, and may even 

 assist in the ejection of the rightful inhabitants of the nest, 

 or in the destruction of the eggs of the foster-parents. It 

 seems rather extraordinary that the details of a Cuckoo's 

 life should not all have been mastered, considering the 

 number of good field naturalists which abound in Britain, 

 but there is much which is still mysterious in the ways of 

 this species, and many things which require explanation. 



One would think, too, that in the case of a bird by no means 

 rare, there would be no possible question as to the method 

 by which the young Cuckoo gets rid of its companions in 

 the nest, and remains supreme in the affection of the foster- 

 parents, who bring it up with unremitting care. The 

 mode in which the little companions of its early days of 

 life are got rid of, has been related many times, and as 

 often discredited. The first account was by Jenner, the 

 celebrated physician, in 1788, but since his time the process 

 of the ejection of the rightful young birds and the usurp- 

 ation of their nest by the nestling Cuckoo has been 

 witnessed by other independent observers. Gould always 

 had a difficulty in believing it, and thought that the old 

 birds had a hand in removing the eggs and young of the 

 foster-parents, so as to make the way clear for the future 

 bringing up of their own youngster. He could not believe 

 that a nestling of three days' growth had the strength to 

 eject another nestling, and he could not understand how 

 the latter disappeared entirely when the nest was at some 

 distance from the ridge of a bank or a beam, unless either 

 the old Cuckoos or the foster-parents removed the dead nest- 

 lings. I remember an instance myself, where a Wagtail had 



