CHAP, vi The Domestic Life of Animals 115 



they are "greedy feeders," says Brehm, "discontented, ill- 

 conditioned, passionate fellows ; in short, decidedly unamiable 

 birds." The truth must be told, the cuckoo is an immoral 

 vagabond, an Ishmaelite, an individualist, a keeper of game 

 "preserves." There are so many males that they have 

 perverted and thoroughly demoralised the females ; there is 

 no true pairing ; they are polyandrous. The birds are too 

 hungry for genuine love, though there is no lack of passion ; 

 while by voraciously devouring hairy caterpillars they have 

 acquired a gizzard-fretting feltwork in their stomachs, and 

 for all I know are cursed by dyspepsia as well as by a con- 

 stitutionally evil character. It is not quite correct to say 

 that the cuckoo-mother is immoral because she shirks the 

 duties of maternity ; it is rather that she puts her young out 

 to nurse because she is immoral. 1 The so-called " parasitic " 

 trick is an outcrop of an egoistic constitution which shows 

 itself in many different ways. The young bird, " a dog in 

 the manger by birth," evicts the helpless rightful tenants 

 whether they are still passive in the eggs or more assertive 

 as nestlings, and as he grows up a spoilt child his foster 

 parents lead no easy life. But though the poets have been 

 hoaxed, I do not believe that the nurses of the fledgling 

 are ; it seems rather as if the haughtiness of their 

 changeling had some charm. 



Of course there is another way of looking at the cuckoo's 

 crime. It is advantageous, and there is much art in the 

 well-executed trick by which the mother foists her several 

 eggs, at intervals of several days, into the nests of various 

 birds, which are usually insectivorous and suited for the 

 upbringing of the intruder. I think there is at least some 

 deliberation in this so-called instinct. Nor should one forget 

 that the mother occasionally returns to the natural habit of 

 hatching her own eggs, a pleasant fact which several trust- 

 worthy observers have thoroughly established. Still, in 

 spite of the poets, the note of this " blessed bird " must be 

 regarded as suggestive of sin ! 



1 The student will notice that I have occasionally used words 

 which are not strictly accurate. I may therefore say definitely that I 

 do not believe that we are warranted in crediting animals with moral, 

 aesthetic, or, indeed, any conceptions. 



