102 C'U.CKOO. 



continued so to do with the utmost care, bestowing every 

 possible attention, and manifesting the greatest anxiety to 

 satisfy its continual craving for food. 



The following is a still more extraordinary instance, cor- 

 roborating the above, and for the truth of which we can 

 vouch in every particular: 'A young Thrush, just able to feed 

 itself, had been placed in a cage; a short time afterwards, a 

 young Cuckoo, which could not feed itself, was introduced 

 into the same cage, a large wicker one, and for some- time 

 it was with much difficulty fed; at length, however, it was 

 observed that the young Thrush was employed in feeding it, 

 the Cuckoo opening its mouth and sitting on the upper perch, 

 and making the Thrush hop down to fetch food up. One 

 day, when it was thus expecting its food in this way, the 

 Thrush seeing a worm put into the cage could not resist the 

 temptation of eating it, upon which the Cuckoo immediately 

 descended from its perch, and attacking the Thrush, literally 

 tore one of its eyes quite out, and then hopped back: the 

 poor Thrush felt itself obliged to take up some food in the 

 lacerated state it was in. The eye healed in course of time, 

 and the Thrush continued its occupation as before, till the 

 Cuckoo was full grown.' 



Mr. Jesse too, in his 'Gleanings in Natural History,' relates 

 the following circumstance as having occurred at Arbury, in 

 Warwickshire*, the seat of Francis JSTewdigate, Esq., the account 

 having been written down at the time by a lady who witnessed 

 it: 'In the early part of the summer of 1828, a Cuckoo, 

 having previously turned out the eggs from a Water- Wagtail's 

 nest, which was built in a small hole in a garden wall at 

 Arbury, deposited her own egg in their place. When the 

 egg was hatched, the young intruder was fed by the Water- 

 Wagtails, till he became too bulky for his confined and 

 narrow quarters, and in a fidgetty fit he fell to the ground. 

 In this predicament he was found by the gardener, who 

 picked him up, and put him into a wire cage, which was 

 placed on the top of the wall, not far from the place of 

 his birth. Here it was expected that the Wagtails would 

 have followed there supposititious offspring with food, to 

 support it in its imprisonment; a mode of proceeding which 

 would have had nothing very uncommon to recommend it to 

 notice. But the odd part of the story is, that the bird 

 which hatched the Cuckoo never came near it; but her place 

 was supplied by a Hedge-Sparrow, who performed her part 



