70 A YOUNG CUCKOO 



But this will scarcely bear examination. Is it 

 credible that the type of egg originally laid by the 

 Cuckoo should have been such as to pass muster 

 with four more than ordinarily exacting critics, each 

 requiring it to be something different from that 

 required by the three others? It is credible only 

 upon the assumption that the Cuckoo was able at 

 once out of the superfluity of variation in its eggs to 

 offer each the distinct type demanded. If approxi- 

 mation to this extent exists to-day, variation to a 

 similar extent may well have existed then. The task 

 is to prove it. This will not be made less difficult 

 by the fact that these exigent critics will brood 

 Cuckoos' eggs of types quite different from their own. 



It is to be feared, however, that the diversity 

 believed to exist among Cuckoos' eggs is not 

 lessened by the admission as such of every larger 

 egg found in a nest with smaller ones. The diverg- 

 ence in colouring often shown by oversized specimens 

 may be just enough to favour the fiction, and this 

 established, surprise may well be excited by the 

 wonderful similarity of the markings. One collection 

 of eggs authenticated by indisputable evidence from 

 each of the countries where the young of the 

 European Cuckoo is reared, would be worth cart- 

 loads of shells gathered by ardent and emulative 

 collectors anxious to increase the number of their 

 specimens rather than to extract the truth of the 

 matter from their observations. It may never be 

 possible fully to explain the many and strangely 

 interdependent anomalies in the life-history of the 

 Cuckoo; but it should be no great task to form a 

 complete and irreproachably authentic collection of 



