284 The Natural History of Se I borne 



Induced by this assertion, we procured a cuckoo, 1 and, 

 cutting open the breast-bone, 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, cran- 

 berries, or some such fruit; so that these birds apparently 

 subsist on insects and fruits ; nor was there the least appear- 

 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 remarkably 

 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 upon the bowels must, especially when full, 

 be in a very uneasy situation during the business of incuba- 

 tion ; 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 goatsucker, 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 internal construction. Nor were our suspicions ill- 

 grounded ; for, upon dissection, 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 pha/cence, moths of several sorts, and their 



1 Wherever White speaks thus in the first person plural, we may suspect 

 the letter either of being an added one, or else of being largely cooked up 

 for publication. ED. 



