LETTER IV 1 



TO THE SAME 



SELBORNE, Feb. igth, 1770. 



DEAR SIR, Your observation that " the cuckoo does not 

 deposit its egg indiscriminately in the nest of the first bird 

 that comes in its way, but probably looks out a nurse in 

 some degree congenerous, with whom to intrust its young," 

 is perfectly new to me ; and struck me so forcibly, that I 

 naturally fell into a train of thought that led me to consider 

 whether the fact was so, and what reason there was for it. 

 When I came to recollect and inquire, I could not find that 

 any cuckoo had ever been seen in these parts, except in 

 the nest of the wagtail, the hedge-sparrow, the titlark, the 

 white-throat, and the redbreast, all soft-billed insectivorous 

 birds. The excellent Mr. Willughby mentions the nest of 

 the palumbus (ring-dove), and of the fringilla (chaffinch), 

 birds that subsist on acorns and grains, and such hard 

 food : but then he does not mention them as of his own 

 knowledge ; but says afterwards that he saw himself a wag- 

 tail feeding a cuckoo. 2 It appears hardly possible that a 

 soft-billed bird should subsist on the same food with the 

 hard-billed : for the former have thin membranaceous 

 stomachs suited to their soft food ; while the latter, the 



1 In the original MS. this forms the conclusion of the preceding letter. 

 [R. B. S.] 



2 In 1865 the number of European species which the Cuckoo had been 

 known to victimise was given in the ' Ibis ' as 52. The list of birds known to 

 act as foster-parents in the Palsearctic Region is now 119. It is impossible to 

 give details of all the facts that have been discovered concerning the economy of 

 the Cuckoo since Gilbert White's time in a foot-note, but the chapter on ' Para- 

 sitic Birds ' in my Wonders of the Bird- World ' may be consulted. [R. B. S.] 



