EGG OF THE CUCKOO. 12Q 



If this severe season does not interrupt the regularity of the 

 summer migrations, the blackcap will be here in two or three 

 days. I wish it was in my power to procure you one of those 

 songsters ; but I am no birdcatcher ; and so little used to birds 

 in a cage, that I fear if I had one it would soon die for want of 

 skill in feeding. 



Was your reed-sparrow, which you kept in a cage, the thick- 

 billed reed-sparrow of the Zoology, p. 320 ; or was it the less 

 reed-sparrow of Ray, the sedge-bird of Mr. Pennant's last publi- 

 cation, p. 16? 



As to the matter of long-billed birds growing fatter in mode- 

 rate frosts, I have no doubt within myself what should be the 

 reason. The thriving at those times appears to me to arise alto- 

 gether from the gentle check which the cold throws upon insen- 

 sible perspiration. The case is just the same with blackbirds, 

 &c. ; and farmers and warreners observe, the first, that their 

 hogs fat more kindly at such times, and the latter that their rab- 

 bits are never in such good case as in a gentle frost. But when 

 frosts are severe, and of long continuance, the case is soon 

 altered ; for then a want of food soon overbalances the repletion 

 occasioned by a checked perspiration. I have observed, more- 

 over, that some human constitutions are more inclined to plump- 

 ness in winter than in summer. 



Redwinged Thrush. Song Thn 



When birds come to suffer by severe frost, I find that the first 

 that fail and die are the redwing-fieldfares, and then the song- 

 thrushes. 



You wonder, with good reason, that the hedge-sparrows, &c., 

 can be induced at all to sit on the egg of the cuckoo without 

 being scandalized at the vast disproportionate size of the suppo- 

 sititious egg ; but the brute creation, I suppose, have very little 

 idea of size, colour, or number. For the common hen, I know, 

 when the fury of incubation is on her, will sit on a single shape- 

 less stone instead of _a nest full^ of eggs that have been with- 

 K 



