THE CUCKOOS AND THE OUTWITTED COW-BlRD 25 



as falsehood. The poet who should so paint the 

 velvety beauty of a rattlesnake as to make you 

 long to coddle it would hardly be considered a 

 safe character to be at large. Likewise an ode 

 to the nettle, or to the autumn splendor of the 

 poison -sumac, which ignored its venom would 

 scarcely be a wise botanical guide for indiscrimi- 

 nate circulation among the innocents. Think, 

 then, of a poetic eulogium on a bird of which the 

 observant Gilbert could have written : 



" This proceeding of the cuckoo, of dropping its 

 eggs as it were by chance, is such a monstrous 

 outrage on maternal affection, 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 or Peru, it would never have merited 

 our belief. . . . She is hardened against her young 

 ones as though they were not hers. . . . ' Because 

 God hath deprived her of wisdom, neither hath 

 He imparted to her understanding.' " 



America is spared the infliction of this notori- 

 ous " cuckoo." Its nearest congeners, our yellow- 

 billed and black-billed cuckoos, while suggesting 

 their foreign ally in shape and somewhat in song, 

 have mended their ways, and though it is true 

 they make a bad mess of it, they at least try to 

 build their own nest, and rear their own young 



