CUCKOO. 127 



not find that any cuckoo had ever been seen in these parts, ex- 

 cept in the nest of the wagtail, the hedge-sparrow, the titlark, the 

 white-throat, and the red-breast, all soft-billed insectivorous birds. 

 The excellent Mr. Willughby mentions the nests of the palumbus 

 (ring-dove), and of ihefringilla (chaffinch), birds that subsist on 

 acorns and grains, and such hard food : but then he does not 

 mention them as of his own knowledge ; but says afterwards that 

 he saw himself a wagtail feeding a cuckoo. It appears hardly 

 possible that a soft-billed bird should subsist on the same food 

 with the hard-billed : for the former have thin membranaceous 

 stomachs suited to their soft food ; while the latter, the granivo- 

 rous tribe, have strong muscular gizzards, which, like mills, 

 grind, by the help ]pf small gravels and pebbles, what is swal- 

 lowed.* This proceeding of the cuckoo, of dropping its eggs as it 

 were by chance, is such a monstrous outrage on maternal affec- 

 tion, one of the first great dictates of nature ; and such a violence 

 on instinct ; that, had it only been related of a bird in the Brazils, 



* Having paid very particular attention to the economy of this interesting species, and taken 

 much pains to investigate its peculiarities, 1 am enabled to state decidedly that the egg is not 

 invariably deposited in the nests of insectivorous birds, but occasionally in those of species which 

 are exclusively granivorous. I have ascertained, either from direct observation, or from the testi- 

 mony of respectable eye-witnesses, the fact of its occurring in the nests of the following numerous 

 species, namely, the blackbird, song-thrush, skylark, green grosbeak, chaffinch, hedge-dunnock, 

 different pipits and wagtails, yellow and reed-bunting, and sedge-reedling; and there are instances 

 recorded of its having been found also in those of the red-backed shrike, linnet, fen-reedling, 

 song pettychaps and locustelle. The most remarkable, however, of all these are undoubtedly the 

 linnet and green grosbeak, which (like the canary) rear their own young exclusively upon mace- 

 rated vegetable diet ejected from their own craws, all the other species (including the chaffinch), 

 subsisting partly, and bringing up their offspring wholly, upon insects. That birds should thus 

 instinctively know what diet the young cuckoo requires, when different from that they would 

 have given their own offspring, is indeed a most extraordinary fact ; but the following highly in- 

 teresting anecdote, related in the Field Naturalist's Magazine, for January, 1834, sufficiently 

 proves that it is actually the case : " A cuckoo," observes the writer, " was found, just feathered, 

 in the nest of a hedge-dunnock. It was immediately taken from thence and placed in a cage 

 containing a hen canary. The birds agreed perfectly well ; but, what is most singular, when the 

 proper food of the cuckoo (young caterpillars, &c.), was placed in the cage, the canary fed its 

 young charge with that, although she herself kept to the hempseed, &c., to which she had been 

 accustomed." The cuckoo is by no means a rare species, and each female bird would seem to lay 

 annually at least six or eight eggs, yet neither the eggs nor young are ever found in any sort of 

 proportion to the number of old birds. The cause of this appears to be that the cuckoo's egg is 

 almost invariably, excepting in two or three particular species, ejected by the rightful owners of 

 the nest in which it has been deposited. I have at least found this to be the case repeatedly, in 

 experiments that I have tried with larks' eggs, which somewhat resemble those of the cuckoo. 1 

 have many times placed one of these along with other eggs, have removed the latter and placed it 

 alone in the nest, and have put them singly into newly finished nests, before any other eggs had 

 been deposited in them, but have continually met with the same result, the surreptitious eggs having 

 been turned out by the rightful owners. This, therefore, must be undoubtedly the main cause 

 of the extreme scarcity of the cuckoo's egg. In at least five instances out of six it is found 

 either in the pied-wagtail's nest, or in that of the common or the shore-pipit, and somewhat less 

 frequently in that of the hedge-dunnock, which latter species, I know, will sometimes eject an 

 alien egg from its nest. To return to the text, it may be observed that all our small insectivorous 

 birds have the stomach far more muscular than would be supposed from Mr. White's remark 

 on the subject. ED. 



