262 THE UNIVERSE. 



cupy themselves in walling up the doorway with quantities 

 of pellets of earth, and in a very short time the usurper, 

 closely imprisoned in the nest he has invaded, dies of as- 

 phyxia. 1 



But of all these winged spoilers the most cruel is the 

 cuckoo. The mode in which it proceeds is as follows : 



This idle and savage inhabitant of our woods does not 

 care either to build a nest, to hatch its eggs, or to feed its 

 young. By means of trickery it hands over this necessary 

 task to other birds, and it is always upon species of the 

 smallest size that it imposes the charge from which it frees 

 itself. 



The most illustrious naturalists, both of antiquity and 

 modern times, had already remarked that the cuckoo makes 

 itself master of a strange nest, the legitimate proprietors of 

 which are sacrificed for the benefit of the invader's prog- 

 eny. But it is only recently that these odious wiles have 

 been clearly unveiled. 



Nature, niggardly with regard to the cuckoo, has only 

 allotted it two eggs. Here, however, a wise foresight may 

 be recognized, for, in order to rear its two little ones, a 

 good number of others are barbarously sacrificed. 



It is the nest of the golden-crested or common wren that 



1 Although this story has been accepted as authentic by Gmelin, the laborious 

 commentator on Linnaeus, as well as by several French savants, Spallanzani, in 

 his Memoires sur les Hirondelles, regards it as doubtful. " It is true," he says, 

 44 that sparrows not unfrequently take possession of the nests before the arrival 

 of the swallows. But the legitimate masters at once make a stir, going to and 

 fro about the sparrows, picking quarrels with them, and ending by making them 

 give up possession." Spallanzani, Voyages dans les Deux Sidles. Paris, an 

 viii., t. 6, p. 22. 



