92 Craigiuillar and its Environs. 



Mrs Hoyes of Skelmorlie, asked for the bird — a 

 request which was readily acceded to. Putting the 

 cuckoo into a large aviary, where, among many other 

 birds, weire American blue robins, she was surprised, 

 when feeding it with meal-worms, and accidentally 

 dropping one, to see a little blue robin pick it up, 

 and at once pop it into the cuckoo's mouth. She 

 subsequently observed that the same bird fed it 

 regularly, and showed fight to any other bird that 

 dared to come near it. Instances have occasionally 

 been recorded of foster-mothers of cuckoos, in their 

 wild state, starving themselves to death in their de- 

 votion to supply their gluttonous charge with food, 

 when immediately a bird, sometimes of another species, 

 would commence to provide for the young brood. 

 These statements have naturally been accepted with re- 

 serve, but the case in point affords some corroboration 

 of their accuracy. Mrs Hoyes wrote: "I don't know 

 when I felt the loss of a pet more than I do the dear 

 devoted blue nurse which we found dead this morning. 

 I do most thoroughly believe that the poor wee bird 

 starved itself to death in trying to keep the cuckoo 



