52 APRIL 



diet. If the cuckoo mother would make up her 

 mind to eat commonplace food, and would not 

 be such an epicure as to insist on nothing but 

 choice live morsels, she could very well provide 

 both for herself and her young, so that what 

 naturalists try to make us believe to be self- 

 sacrifice in her is obviously sheer laziness and un- 

 exampled greed. 



One might be inclined to look for some saving 

 grace in the young cuckoo of tender age ; but 

 Dr. Japp tells us that the fact is indisputable that 

 he is as unscrupulous as his mother, for he murders 

 his foster-brethren as soon as he has sense to 

 perceive that they deprive him of food which would 

 in their absence be all his. By the time he is three 

 days old he has tilted the other young nestlings 

 over the edge of the nest, together with any eggs 

 which may remain there, using his back as a kind 

 of shovel and his wings as hands. Verily it may 

 be said of him that by a process of development 

 he has actually become shapen in wickedness, for 

 his back has taken a hollow form which enables 

 him to accomplish this heartless operation with 

 perfect ease. 



But to return to the old cuckoos. If they are 

 idle and greedy at laying time, they are simply 

 barbarous when July comes and they make ready 

 to migrate. The elder birds quit this country 

 without the slightest regard for their offspring, 

 who are not yet ready to fly. It seems as if this 

 further characteristic was intended to put a final 

 touch to the illustration of their general immorality, 

 for I believe they are the only birds which leave 



