THE CUCKOO. 169 



evidently aware that there will not be room for 

 more than one of her great children to be cradled 

 in so confined an abode. It has been often ask- 

 ed in what manner the female cuckoo introduces 

 her eggs into nests which are either so small in 

 their dimensions, or so contracted in their en- 

 trance, that she cannot possibly get into them. 

 It now seems ascertained that the mode she 

 adopts is to carry an egg in her bill, and drop it 

 into the nest she has chosen. The young cuckoo, 

 soon after it is hatched, usually turns out of the 

 nest the eggs or young birds of its foster-mother. 

 But though the cuckoo thus puts out her chil- 

 dren to be nursed, she by no means deserts them, 

 or ceases to feel a parental interest in her pro- 

 geny. She has been seen to hover round the 

 tree where the young bird is lodged, singing near 

 it, and evidently answering its cries with her 

 song ; as if willing to visit and pay it kind atten- 

 tions, though she cannot take the trouble of nurs- 

 ing. We must not blame the poor cuckoo for 

 this peculiarity, but should rather regard the 

 circumstance as a singular instance of the pro- 

 vision made by the great Author of Nature for 

 every living creature. 



The cuckoo does not seem fitted, like other 

 birds, to undertake the charge of hatching and 

 rearing her young ; but she is directed, by the 



