NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 169 



Induced by this assertion, we procured a cuckoo ; and, cut- 

 ting open the breastbone, and exposing the intestines to sight, 

 found the crop lying as mentioned above. This stomach was 

 large and round, and stuffed hard, like a pincushion, with food, 

 which, upon nice examination, we found to consist of various 

 insects ; such as small scarabs, spiders, and dragon-flies ; the 

 last of which we have seen cuckoos catching on the wing as 

 they were just emerging out of the aurelia state. Among this 

 farrago also were to be seen maggots, and many seeds, which 

 belonged either to gooseberries, currants, cranberries, or some 

 such fruit ; so that these birds apparently subsist on insects 

 and fruits; nor was there the least appearance 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 remarkably short, 

 between which and the anus lay the crop, or craw, and im- 

 mediately behind that the bowels against the backbone. 



It must be allowed, as this anatomist observes, that the crop 

 placed just upon the bowels must, especially 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 : because, 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 habit 

 and shape, we suspected might resemble the cuckoo in its inter- 

 nal construction. Nor were our suspicions ill-grounded ; for, 

 upon the dissection, the crop, or craw, also lay behind the ster- 

 num, immediately on the viscera, between them and the skin of 

 the belly. It was bulky, and stuffed hard with large phalcence, 

 moths of several sorts, and their eggs, which no doubt had been 

 forced out of those 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 conjecture, that cuckoos are incapable of 

 incubation from the disposition of their intestines, seems to fall 

 to the ground ; and we are still at a loss for the cause of that 



