THE CUCKOO. 189 



And yet we must be satisfied on these points if 

 we are to accept the ingenious theory of Dr. Balda- 

 mus. If we understand the learned German rightly, 

 he states that, with a view to insure the preservation 

 of species which would otherwise be exposed to 

 danger, Nature has endowed every hen Cuckoo 

 with the faculty of laying eggs similar in colour to 

 those of the species in whose nest she lays, in order 

 that they may be less easily detected by the foster 

 parents, and that she only makes use of the nest of 

 some other species (i.e. of one whose eggs do not 

 resemble her own) when, at the time she is ready to 

 lay, a nest of the former description is not at hand. 

 This statement, which concludes a long and in- 

 teresting article on the subject in the German 

 ornithological journal Naumannia, for 1853, nas 

 deservedly attracted much attention. English 

 "eaders were presented with an epitome of this 

 article by Mr. Dawson Rowley in the Ibis for 1865, 

 and the Rev. A. C. Smith, after bringing it to the 

 notice of the Wiltshire Archaeological Society in the 

 same year, published a literal translation of the 

 paper in the Zoologist for 1868. In Nature, i8th 

 November 1869, appeared an interesting article on 



