200 HABITS OF THE CUCKOO. 



catastrophe may occur, the Cuckoo, wisely taught, relieves her- 

 self of all the trouble and anxiety of nest-building and nursing, 

 and depositing her eggs, each as it is ready, in the nest of some 

 small bird, and never more than one in the nest of the same bird, 

 has her family brought up for her after a fashion not more con- 

 ducive to her own ease and comfort than to the comfort aud 

 safety of her offspring. 



And the same wise instinct which thus leads the Cuckoo to 

 distribute her family in the nests of other birds, leads her un- 

 erringly to select as their foster parents such birds only as subsist 

 on the insect food adapted for her young. The Hedge-sparrow is 

 the one usually selected, but the Eeed-sparrow, the Titlark, the 

 Water-wagtail, the Yellowhammer, and the Linnet, are all of 

 them occasionally pressed into the service, and a case is men- 

 tioned in which the burden was laid upon a poor diminutive 

 Wren. Thus much as to the parent Cuckoo ; but the procedure of 

 the young bird is no less remarkable. It is no sooner hatched 

 than it begins to shoulder out of the nest all the eggs or young 

 birds which may happen to be there, and it is qualified for the 

 ungrateful business in a very peculiar manner. Its back, it 

 appears, is very differently shaped from that of other newly 

 hatched birds, being unusually broad from the shoulders down- 

 wards, with a considerable depression in the middle, which seems 

 specially designed for giving a secure lodgment to an egg or a 

 young bird. No wonder that, being thus specially adapted for 

 the work, the young Cuckoo easily contrives to get the eggs or 

 young birds in the nest on its back, and then raising itself with a 

 sort of jerk, tosses them over. It is a very noteworthy circum- 

 stance, moreover, that the depression in the back, intended as it 

 would seem for the express purpose of aiding the young bird in 

 getting rid of its companions, fills up and disappears in about 

 ten or twelve days, by which time of course the Cuckoo has got 

 the nest to itself. 



Pliny has an entire chapter devoted to the Cuckoo, and as a 

 matter of course he has a good many curious things to say about 

 it, which read none the worse for the quaint dressing of our friend 

 Philemon. The best part of the story is that which relates to 

 the young bird and its hapless foster parent, which it appears 

 pays a terrible penalty for its attention to the young ingrate. 

 But here is the story : " And this young Cuckow being greedy 



