34 A PHILOSOPHER WITH NATURE 



related to many orders, but related to them at the 

 parting of the ways from whence evolution has 

 carried life to new horizons. In the solution of the 

 problem of feeding itself the cuckoo has simply 

 followed the sun north and south of the Equator. 

 But in the solution of the problem of feeding its 

 young it has been masterful, sinister, original. 



The bird flies down rapidly into the open space 

 close to some low gorse bushes from whence a 

 peculiar gurgling sound seems to come. As you 

 reach the spot with some difficulty through the long 

 ferns two cuckoos rise from the surface. It is 

 in one of these open spaces on another occasion 

 that you have found the bird in the act of laying 

 upon the ground and have picked up the egg still 

 warm. For the cuckoo does not usually lay her 

 egg in the nest of her victim, but carries it thither 

 in her bill. The selected victim in these parts is 

 generally the little hedge-sparrow, which feeds its 

 young exclusively on soft insect food. 



In a few weeks more the tragedy in which the 

 young cuckoo figures will be in full progress in the 

 hedges here. If you had not personally witnessed 

 every detail of it, it would be almost impossible to 

 believe fully in the concentrated purposeness of 

 the long series of acts by which the end is attained. 

 The young cuckoo after it is hatched out by the 

 foster-parent lies for about two days helpless at the 

 bottom of the nest. Then the spirit of its ancestry 

 descends upon it. The young of the parasitic 

 American cowbird is usually content to take its 

 chances in the nest with the young of its foster 

 parent. But not so the young of this bird. About 

 the third day, and while it is still blind and without 



