84 FRESH LIGHT UPON THE CUCKOO 



manoeuvre drew it against the side, drew again, till 

 out upon the hot stones came my prey, and then began 

 a proper dance. It was an eel, and a small one at that. 

 Having accomplished what must be reckoned a rare feat 

 killing an eel on an artificial fly please the pigs I 

 may never repeat it ! for the mess to which that slimy 

 little creature reduced the casting line could only be 

 treated with a knife. 



Avast! there is no measure in an old fisherman's 

 garrulity, but there are limits to the patience of his 

 hearers. 



XIX 



If Agur the son of Jakeh had made a thoroughly 

 clean breast of it when he confessed that 



Fresh Light 



upon the three things were too wonderful for him, yea 

 four that he knew not, he must assuredly 

 have added a fifth, namely, the way of a cuckoo with 

 its egg, for that has baffled all attempts at elucidation 

 until the present year of grace. Hitherto, little more 

 of the mystery has been known to ornithologists than 

 the bare fact of the fraud whereby the female cuckoo 

 contrived to lay a single egg in each of several nests of 

 different species of bird ; that the young cuckoo, having 

 been hatched under its unconscious foster-mother, pro- 

 ceeded to eject the legitimate brood one after another 

 from their lawful nursery; and that the bereaved 

 parents, far from showing resentment at the outrage, 

 housed and fed the intruder with utmost care and 

 diligence. That much in itself, were no more to be 

 known of the details, forms a remarkable chronicle of 



