EFFECTS OF FEOST ON ANIMALS. 113 



of those songsters ; but I am no bird-catcher ; and so little 

 used to birds in a cage, that I fear, if I had one, it would 

 soon die for want of skill in feeding. 



"Was your reed-sparrow, which you kept in a cage, the 

 thick billed reed-sparrow of the Zoology, p. 320 ; or was it 

 the less reed-sparrow of Ray, the sedge-bird of Mr. Pennant's 

 last publication, p. 16 ? 



As to the matter of long-billed birds growing fatter in 

 moderate frosts, I have no doubt within myself what should 

 be the reason. The thriving at those times appears to me to 

 arise altogether from the gentle check which the cold throws 

 upon insensible perspiration. The case is just the same 

 with blackbirds, &c. ; and farmers and warreners observe, 

 the first, that their hogs fat more kindly at such times; 

 and the latter, that their rabbits are never in such good case 

 as in a gentle frost. But, when frosts are severe and of long 

 continuance, the case is soon altered ; for then a want of 

 food soon overbalances the repletion occasioned by a checked 

 perspiration. I have observed, moreover, that some human 

 constitutions are more inclined to plumpness in winter than 

 in summer. 



When birds come to suffer by severe frost, I find that the 

 first that fail and die are the red-wing fieldfares, and then 

 the song-thrushes. 



You wonder, with good reason, that the hedge-sparrows, 

 &c., can be induced at all to sit on the egg of the cuckoo, 

 without being scandalised at the vast disproportioned size of 

 the supposititious egg ; but the brute creation, I suppose, 

 have very little idea of size, colour, or number.* For the 

 common hen, I know, when the fury of incubation is on her, 

 will sit on a single shapeless stone, instead of a nest full of 

 eggs that have been withdrawn ; and moreover, a hen turkey, 

 in the same circumstances, would sit on in the empty nest 

 till she perished with hunger. , 



I think the matter might easily be determined whether a 

 cuckoo lays one or two eggs, or more, in a season, by open- 



* By a wise provision of nature, and to prevent the very circumstance 

 which Mr. White here notices, we find the egg of the cuckoo scarcely larger 

 that that of the common chaffinch. W. J. 



But the young cuckoo is, beyond all douht, larger than the birds that are 

 usually found in the same nest. W. C. T. 



I 



