NESTS OF BIRDS. 177 



Birds of the gallinaceous or poultry kind lay their eggs on 

 the ground. Some of them scrape a kind of hole in the earth, 

 and line it with a little long grass or straw. 



It is a singular, though a well-attested fact, that the cuc- 

 koo makes no nest, and neither hatches nor feeds her own 

 young. 4 The hedge-sparrow/ says Mr. Willoughby, ' is the 

 cuckoo's nurse; but not the hedge-sparrow only, but also ring- 

 doves, larks, finches. I myself, with many others, have seen 

 .1 wag-tail feeding a young cuckoo. The cuckoo herself 

 builds no nest ; but having found the nest of some little bird, 

 she either devours or destroys the eggs she there finds, and, in 

 the room thereof, lays one of her own, and so forsakes it. 

 The silly bird, returning, sits on this egg, hatches it, and, 

 with a great deal of care and toil, broods, feeds, and cherishes 

 the young cuckoo for her own, until it be grown up, and able 

 to fly and shift for itself. Which thing seems so strange, 

 monstrous, and absurd, that for my part I cannot sufficiently 

 wonder there should be such an example in nature ; nor could 

 I ever have been induced to believe that such a thing had been 

 done by nature's instinct, had I not with mine own eyes seen 

 it. For nature, in other things, is wont constantly to observe 

 one and the same law and order, agreeable to the highest rea- 

 son and prudence ; which in this case is, that the dams make 

 nests for themselves, if need be, sit upon their own eggs, and 

 bring up their own young after they are hatched.'* This 

 economy in the history of the cuckoo, is not only singular, 

 but seems to contradict one of the most universal laws estab- 

 lished among animated beings, and particularly among the 

 feathered tribes, namely, the hatching and rearing of their 

 offspring. Still, however, like the ostrich in very warm cli- 

 mates, though the cuckoo neither hatches nor feeds her young, 

 she places her eggs in situations where they are both hatched 

 and her offspring brought to maturity. Here the stupidity of 

 the one animal makes it a dupe to the rapine and chicane of 

 the other ; for the cuckoo always destroys the eggs of the 

 small bird before she deposits her own. 



Most of the passerine or small birds build their nests in 

 hedges, shrubs, or bushes ; though some of them, as the lark 

 and the goat-sucker, build upon the ground. The nests of 

 small birds are more delicate in their structure and contri- 

 vance than those of the larger kinds. As the size of their bod- 

 ies, and likewise that of their eggs, are smaller, the materials 



* Willoughby's Ornithology, p. 98. 



