POOD OF CUCKOOS. 191 



on and over the bowels, so as to make a large protuberance in 

 the belly.* 



Induced by this assertion, we procured a cuckoo ; and, cut- 

 ting open the breast-bone, and exposing the intestines to sight, 

 found the crop lying as mentioned above. This stomach was 

 large and round, and stuffed hard like a pincushion with food, 

 which, upon nice examination, we found to consist of various 

 insects ; such as small scarabs, spiders, and dragon flies ; the last 

 of which we have seen cuckoos catching on the wing as they 

 were just emerging out of the aurelia state. Among this farrago 

 also were to be seen maggots, and many seeds, which belonged 

 either to gooseberries, currants, cranberries, or some such fruit ; 

 so that these birds apparently subsist on insects and fruits : nor 

 was there the least appearance of bones, feathers, or fur to support 

 the idle notion of their being birds of prey.f 



The sternum in this bird seemed to us to be remarkably short, 

 between which and the anus lay the crop, or craw, and imme- 

 diately behind that the bowels against the back-bone. 



It must be allowed, as this anatomist observes, that the crop 

 placed just upon the bowels must, especially when full, be in a 

 very uneasy situation during the business of incubation ; yet the 

 test will be to examine whether birds that are actually known 

 to sit for certain are not formed in a similar manner. This en- 

 quiry I proposed to myself to make with a fern-owl, or goat- 

 sucker, as soon as opportunity offered : because, if their forma- 

 tion proves the same, the reason for incapacity in the cuckoo will 

 be allowed to have been taken up somewhat hastily. 



Not long after a fern-owl was procured, which, from its habit 

 and shape, we suspected might resemble the cuckoo in its internal 

 construction. Nor were our suspicions ill-grounded ; for, upon 

 the dissection, the crop, or craw, also lay behind the sternum, 

 immediately on the viscera, between them and the skin of the 

 belly. It was bulky, and stuffed hard with large phalcena, moths 

 of several sorts, and their eggs, which no doubt had been forced 

 out of those insects by the action of swallowing. 



Now as it appears that this bird, which is so well known to 

 practise incubation, is formed in a similar manner with cuckoos, 



* Histoire de I'Academie Royale, 1752. 



t There is a notion prevalent that the stomach of the European cuckoo is internally coated 

 with smalt pads, the use of which, it has been stated, is to defend this organ against the irri- 

 tating effects of those of caterpillars. Nothing of the kind exists, as I have often had occasion tv> 

 observe, upon dissection. ED. 



