THE RETURN OF THE BIRDS 65 



certain that the bird sometimes conveys eggs thither 

 in its bill. They have been found, too, in nests 

 where it would have been impossible for the bird 

 to lay them; but the most convincing evidence 

 on this head is furnished by the fact that cuckoos 

 have not infrequently been observed conveying their 

 eggs to the nest of another species. Had this not 

 been proved to actual demonstration the truth might 

 have been inferred from several facts known to 

 naturalists. The egg of the cuckoo has been found 

 in the nests of no less than sixty different birds, 

 among these being those of the common wren, 

 willow-warbler, and titmouse, each of which is 

 exceedingly small, and, moreover, domed. This 

 fact is incontestable, and the impossibility of the 

 cuckoo's having actually laid the eggs in the nests 

 will at once be seen. Among the sixty nests patron- 

 ised were the unlikely ones of the butcher-bird, jay, 

 and magpie all either bird or egg destroyers. 

 This may reflect upon the cuckoo's stupidity, and 

 the bird exhibits a deplorable ignorance of the 

 fitness of things when it deposits its egg in the nest 

 of either the diminutive fire-crest or the more 

 cumbersome one of the cushat. A fire-crest, almost 

 the smallest of British birds, might conveniently be 

 stowed away in the gape of a young cuckoo without 

 the latter detecting that the morsel was much more 

 than a normal supply. 



