THE CUCKOO IN THE PIPIT'S NEST. 



whom received.' It is singular that Waterton, who was well known to be a 

 strict Eoman Catholic, should have actually used Hume's famous argument 

 on miracles in order to discredit a fact in natural history which was generally 

 accepted by naturalists at the time of his writing (1836). It is more prob- 

 able, he implies, that the witnesses should have been deceived than that the 

 events should actually have taken place. But he would not have argued so 

 concerning the events which Hume thought incredible, nor even concerning 

 ecclesiastical miracles of much more recent date. Dr Norman Moore, as in 

 private duty bound, backs up Waterton and calls Jenner's narrative of the 

 young Cuckoo an absurdity. He has also found a passage in Baron's Life of 

 Jenner which leads him to think that the merit (or demerit) of the observa- 

 tions really belongs to Henry Jenner, then a lad, who was set to watch the 

 Cuckoo's nest and to report to his uncle. Baron's statement (vol. i., pp. 85, 

 86) is no doubt to that effect ; but why should we assume, with Dr Norman 

 Moore, that Henry Jenner * gave an imaginary account ? ' Why should not 

 a lad be a competent witness 1 Darwin was at length satisfied with the 

 testimony of a lady, a talented artist. The testimony of the gentleman at 

 Oatlands in 1886 was, in your opinion, strengthened by that of his sister and 

 of another lady. Nor is it certain that Jenner was dependent to the extent 

 that Baron implies on the reports brought to him by his nephew. For in 

 relating the successive steps of the ejectment in his letter to the Koyal 

 Society he uses four times the expression 'I saw,' or its equivalent. I 

 enclose my card, and I am, Sirs, your obedient servant, M. N. O. 



"June 27th, 1892." 



110 



