THE CUCKOO. 235 



ance of bones, feathers, or fur, to support the idle 

 notion of their being birds of prey *. 



The sternum in this bird seemed to us to be re- 

 markably short, between which and the anus lay the 

 crop, or craw, and immediately behind that, the 

 bowels against the back-bone. 



It must be allowed, as this anatomist observes, that 

 the crop, placed just below the bowels, must, espe- 

 cially when full, be in a very uneasy situation during 

 the business of incubation : yet the test will be, to 

 examine whether birds that are actually known to sit 

 for certain, are not formed in a similar manner. This 

 inquiry I proposed to myself to make with a fern-owl, 

 or goat-sucker, as soon as opportunity offered : be- 

 cause, if their formation proves the same, the reason 

 for incapacity in the cuckoo will be allowed to have 

 been taken up somewhat hastily. 



Not long after, a fern-owl was procured, which, 

 from its habits and shape, we suspected might re- 

 semble the cuckoo in its internal construction. Nor 

 were our suspicions ill grounded ; for, upon the dis- 

 section, the crop, or craw, also lay behind the sternum, 

 immediately on the viscera, between them and the 

 skin of the belly. It was bulky, and stuffed hard 

 with large phal(en&, moths of several sorts, and their 

 eggs, which, no doubt, had been forced out of these 

 insects by the action of swallowing. 



Now, as it appears that this bird, which is so well 

 known to practise incubation, is formed in a similar 

 manner with cuckoos, Monsieur Herissant's conjec- 

 ture, that cuckoos are incapable of incubation from 

 the disposition of their intestines, seems to fall to the 



* When these birds have fed much on some of the large hairy 

 caterpillars so common on the northern muirs, the stomach 

 becomes filled and coated with the short hairs, which may have 

 assisted in raising the opinion that they feed on small animals. 

 W. J. 



