BIRDS. !9I 



This reproach seems to arise Irom this bird's making use of 

 the bed or nest of another to deposit its own brood in. 



However this may be, nothing is more certain than that the 

 female makes no nest of her own. She repairs for that purpose 

 to the nest of some other bird, generally the water-wagtail or 

 hedge-sparrow, and having devoured the eggs of the owner, lays 

 her own in their place. She usually lays but one, which is 

 speckled, and of the size of a blackbird's. This the fond fool- 

 ish bird hatches with great assiduity, and, when excluded, finds 

 no difference in the great ill-looking changeling from her own. 

 To supply this voracious creature, the credulous nurse toils with 

 unusual labour, no way sensible that she is feeding up an enemy 

 to her race, and one of the most destructive robbers of her future 

 progeny. 



It was once doubted whether these birds were carnivorous •, 

 but Reaumur was at the pains of breeding up several, and found 

 that they would not feed upon bread or corn ; but flesh and in- 

 sects were their favourite nourishment. He found it a very 

 difficult task to teach them to peck ; for he was obliged to feed 

 them a full month after they were grown as big as the mother. 

 Insects, however, seemed to be their peculiar food when young ; 

 for they devoured flesh by a kind of constraint, as it vi'as al- 

 ways put into their mouths ; but meal-worm insects they flew 

 to, and swallowed of their own accord most greedily. Indeed, 

 their gluttony is not be wondered at, when we consider the ca- 

 pacity of their stomach, which is enormous, and reaches from 

 the breast-bone to the vent. It is partly membranous, partly 

 muscular, and of a prodigious capacity ; yet still they are not to 

 be supposed as birds of prey, for they have neither the strength 

 nor the courage. On the contrary, they are naturally weak and 

 fearful, as appears by their flying from small birds, which every 

 where pursue them. The young birds are brown, mixed with 

 black ; and in that state they have been described by some au- 

 thors as old ones. 



The cuckoo, when fledged and fitted for flight, follows its 

 supposed parent but for a little time ; its appetite for insect 

 food increasing, as it finds no great chance for a supply in imi- 

 tating its little instructor, it parts good friends, the step-child 

 seldom offering any violence to its nurse. Nevertheless, all the 

 little birds of the grove seem to consider the young cuckoo as an 



