Ventriloquists. 291 



interested motive : all their interests were to get rid 

 of their visitor. May we not suppose, then, that 

 what was begun through the operation of hereditaiy 

 instinct, i.e., the feeding of the cuckoo, while still 

 small and before the young robins had been ejected, 

 was continued from an affection that gradually grew 

 up for the helpless intruder ? Higher sentiments than 

 those usually attributed to the birds and beasts of 

 the field may, I think, be traced in some of their 

 actions. 



To the number of these birds whose call is more 

 or less apparently ventriloquial the partridge may be 

 added ; for when they are assembling in the evening 

 at the roosting-place their calls in the stubble often 

 sound some way to the right or left of the real posi- 

 tion of the bird, which presently appears emerging 

 from the turnips ten or fifteen yards farther up than 

 was judged by the ear. It is not really ventriloquial, 

 but caused by the rapid movements and by the cir- 

 cumstance of the bird being out of sight. 



We constantly hear that the area of pasture in 

 England is extending, and gradually overlapping ara- 

 ble lands ; and the question suggests itself whether 

 this, if it continues, will not have some effect upon 

 bird and animal life by favoring those that like grass 

 lands and diminishing those that prefer the ploughed. 

 On and near ploughed lands modern agriculture 

 endeavors to cut down trees and covers and grub up 

 hedges, not only on account of their shade and the 

 injury done by their roots, but because they are sup- 

 posed to shelter sparrows and other birds. But pas- 

 ture and meadow are favorable to hedges, trees, and 

 covers : wherever there is much grass there is gen- 



