APRIL 51 



that she has the instinct of the preservation of 

 the species so strongly developed that her action 

 practically amounts to self-abnegation that the 

 particular food upon which she most depends be- 

 comes so scarce that she would not find it possible 

 to provide for herself and her family too, so that 

 she resigns all unwillingly the sweet privileges of 

 maternity to the foster-parents. Her young are 

 so voracious that it is a hard matter for a pair of 

 sparrows or titlarks to satisfy a single infant bird. 



THE NIGHT-JAR 



But here again too much, I think, is conceded 

 to the supposed moral purpose and rectitude of 

 the female cuckoo. She is an insectivorous bird, 

 and she prefers for her young the nest of other 

 insectivorous birds. But when a home is hard to 

 find, or when she is too lazy to devote much time 

 to the search, she will deposit them in the nests of 

 seed- or fruit-eating birds ; and this diet supplied by 

 them to their foster-child causes it to flourish equally 

 well as when fed upon the natural caterpillar or insect 



