292 THE CUCKOO. 



one of these birds living for a year, when kept in con- 

 finement, which is the more surprising, as their usual 

 insect-food might be generally procured. 



To naturalists various other peculiarities in the Cuckoo 

 are well known, but in closing our account, we would 

 refer to two more particularly worthy of notice, as in- 

 stances of the wonderful manner in which its wants are 

 assisted by nature. The Cuckoo, as we have said, lays 

 its egg in the nest of a small bird; of course, if this 

 egg were large in proportion to the size of the parent 

 bird, it would be far too large for the little nest in which 

 it was placed, and its unnatural size would, moreover, 

 in all probability, frighten the lesser foster-mother, and 

 induce her to desert her own nest ; but a Cuckoo's egg 

 is remarkably small, and therefore can be laid, without 

 exciting suspicion, in the midst of others, of a naturally 

 small size. In the next place, it is known that the 

 young Cuckoo always contrives to make room for its 

 increasing size, by throwing the other nestlings out of 

 the nest; but were it of the usual form with other birds, 

 it would find great difficulty in accomplishing this. 

 Nature, however, lends a helping hand, and has given 

 it a remarkable depression or hollow between its shoul- 

 ders, into which, by an odd sort of jerk, it contrives to- 

 lift the young birds, and then shuffling backwards to the 

 edge of the nest throws them over. This hollow, how- 

 ever, only remains for a certain time and then fills up; 

 and it is an extraordinary fact, that if the young birds 

 are designedly kept in the nest till the hollow is filled 

 up, the young Cuckoo, as if aware that it has no longer 

 the power to get rid of them, allows them to remain 

 unmolested. 



