II4 ROUND THE YEAR 



which continued undetermined till the next afternoon, 

 when one of them, which was somewhat superior in 

 size, turned out the other, together with the young 

 Hedge-sparrow and the unhatched egg. The contest 

 was very remarkable. The combatants alternately 

 appeared to have the advantage, as each carried the 

 other several times nearly to the top of the nest, and 

 then sunk down again, oppressed by the weight of 

 its burden, till at length the strongest prevailed, and 

 was afterwards brought up by the Hedge-sparrows. 



" Why should not the Cuckoo, like other Birds, build 

 a nest, incubate its eggs, and rear its own young ? 

 There is no reason to be assigned from the formation 

 of the Bird, why it should not perform all these 

 several offices. May not the singularities of the 

 Cuckoo be owing to the short residence this Bird 

 makes in the country where it propagates, and the 

 call of nature to produce during that short residence a 

 numerous progeny ? The Cuckoo's first appearance 

 here is about the middle of April, commonly on the 

 1 7th. 1 Its egg is not ready for incubation till some 

 weeks after its arrival, seldom before the middle of 

 May. A fortnight is taken up by the sitting Bird in 

 hatching the egg. The young Bird generally con- 

 tinues about three weeks in the nest before it flies, 

 and the foster-parents feed it more than five weeks after 

 this period ; so that [even] if a Cuckoo should be ready 

 with an egg much sooner than the time pointed out, 

 not a single nestling would be fit to provide for itself 

 before its parent would be instinctively directed to 



1 In other parts of England the Cuckoo often arrives a few 

 days earlier. 



