272 THE CUCKOO. 



the wonderful manner in which its wants are assisted hy 

 nature. The Cuckoo, as we have said, lays its egg in the 

 nest of a small "bird ; of course, if this egg were large in 

 proportion to the size of the parent bird, it would be far 

 too large for the little nest in which it was placed, and its 

 unnatural size would, moreover, in all probability, frighten 

 the lesser foster-mother, and induce her to desert her own 

 nest ; but a Cuckoo's egg is remarkably small, and therefore 

 can be laid, without exciting suspicion, in the midst of others, 

 of a naturally small size. In the next place, it is known 

 that the young Cuckoo always contrives to make room for its 

 increasing size, by throwing the other nestlings out of the 

 nest ; but were it of the usual form with other birds, it would 

 find great difficulty in accomplishing this. Nature, how- 

 ever, lends a helping hand, and has given it a remarkable 

 depression or hollow between its shoulders, into which, by 

 an odd sort of jerk, it contrives to lift the young birds, and 

 then shuffling backwards to the edge of the nest, throws 

 them over. This hollow, however, only remains for a certain 

 time, and then fills up ; and it is an extraordinary fact, that 

 if the young birds are designedly kept in the nest till the 

 hollow is filled up, the young Cuckoo, as if aware that it has 

 no longer the power to get rid of them, allows them to 

 remain unmolested. 



