. XVI. 13- OF INSTINCT. 205 



If it fhould be afked, what induces a bird to fit 

 weeks on its firft eggs unconfcious that a brood of 

 young ones will be the product ? The anfwer mud 

 be, that it is the fame paflion that induces the hu- 

 man mother to hold her offspring whole nights and 

 days in her fond arms, and prefs it to her bofom^ 

 unconfcious of its future growth to fenfe and man- 

 hood, till obfervation. or tradition have informed 

 her. 



5. And as many ladies are too refined to hurfe 

 their own children, and deliver them to the care 

 and provifion of others ; fo is there one inftance 

 of this vice in the feathered world. The cuckoo 

 in fome parts of England, as I am well informed 

 by a very diftinft and ingenious gentleman, hatches 

 and educates her own young ; whilft in other parts 

 me builds no neft, but ufes that of fome leffer 

 bird, generally either of the wagtail, or hedge 

 fparrow, and depofiting one egg in it, takes no 

 further care of her progeny. 



As the Rev, Mr. Stafford was walking in Glofop 

 Dale, in the Peak of Derbyfhire, he faw a cuckoo 

 rife from its neft. Thfe neft was on the ftump of a 

 tree, that had been fome time felled, among fome 

 chips that were in part turned grey^ fo as much to 

 referable the colour of the birdj in this neft were 

 two young cuckoos : tying a firing about the leg of 

 one of them^ he pegged the other end of it to the 

 ground, and very frequently for many days beheld 

 the old cuckoo feed thef her young, as he flood 

 Very near them. 



The following extract of a Letter from the Rev. 

 Mr. Wilmot, of Morley, near Derby, ftrengthens 

 the truth of the fact above mentioned, of the 

 cuckoo fometimes making a neft, and hatching her 

 own young. 



<c In the beginning of July, 1792, I was attend- 

 ing fome labourers on my farm, when one of them 



P 2 faid 



