PIPIT AND CUCKOO. 131 



birds. Now little birds, and especially this same 

 titling, are very apt to fly in the train of hawks and 

 magpies, in all probability to take off the attention of 

 those birds from the females and eggs ; and such a 

 purpose, in the case of following the cuckoo, would be 

 at least as consistent with the usual plans of nature, as 

 that which is alleged of the cuckoo and the pipit. 

 We have no wish to offer any decided opinion on the 

 singular propensity alleged of the cuckoo, that the 

 female generally deposits her eggs, one by one, in the 

 nests of small birds, where they are hatched by their 

 foster mothers, and fed by them till they thus are 

 fledged ; in the course of which time, they most un- 

 gratefully eject their foster brothers and sisters from 

 the nest. In the face of the many grave and learned 

 authorities by which this is stated, it would not become 

 us to give an opinion ; all that we can positively say is, 

 that, although we have seen very many young cuckoos 

 in nests, sometimes two, but never more in any one 

 nest, and generally only one ; and although we have 

 seen them in nests disproportionally small, and of the 

 same structure as the nests of smaller birds, we have 

 never met with the egg of the cuckoo along with that 

 of any other bird, have never scared a little bird from 

 the act of incubation in a cuckoo's nest, and never 

 have detected one little bird in the act of feeding a 

 cuckoo, either in the nest or out of it. We do not 

 say that these matters cannot, or even that they do not 

 happen, we merely say that we have never seen them. 

 When we enter upon a study where there are facts to 

 appeal to, we must really be on our guard against 

 names, however eminent, or however deservedly they 



