S& SINGING BIRDS CUCKOO. 



red-breast, the swallow, the white-throat, the goldfinch, the 

 common linnet, are all undoubted instances of the truth of 

 what I advanced. 



If this severe season does not interrupt the regularity of the 

 summer migrations, the black-cap will be here in two or three 

 days. * I wish it was in my power to procure you one of those 

 songsters ; but I am no bird catcher ; and so little used to 

 birds in a cage, that I fear, if I had one, it would soon die for 

 want of skill in feeding. 



Was your reed-sparrow, which you kept in a cage, the thick 

 billed reed-sparrow of the Zoology, p. 320 ? or was it the less 

 reed-sparrow of Ray, the sedge-bird of Mr Pennant's last 

 publication, p. 1 6 ? 



As to the matter of long billed birds growing fatter in 

 moderate frosts, I have no doubt within myself what should 

 be the reason. The thriving at those times appears to me to 

 arise altogether from the gentle check which the cold throws 

 upon insensible perspiration. The case 1 is just the same with 

 blackbirds, &c. ; and farmers and warreners observe, the first, 

 that their hogs fat more kindly at such times, and the latter, 

 that their rabbits are never in such good case as in a gentle 

 frost. But, when frosts are severe, and of long continuance, 

 the case is soon altered ; for then a want of food soon over- 

 balances the repletion occasioned by a checked perspiration. 

 I have observed, moreover, that some human constitutions are 

 more inclined to plumpness in winter than in summer. 



When birds come to suffer by severe frost, I find that the 

 first that fail and die are the red-wing field-fares, and then the 

 song-thrushes. 



You wonder, with good reason, that the hedge-sparrows, 

 &c. can be induced at all to sit on the egg of the cuckoo, 

 without being scandalized at the vast disproportioned size of 

 the supposititious egg ; but the brute creation, I suppose, 

 have very little idea of size, colour, or number. -j- For, the 



* Sir William Jardine supposes that the black-cap of Britain migrates to 

 Madeira, having received specimens from that island ; but Dr Heineken, 

 who resided there, informs us that it is resident all the year round. Mr 

 Lewin shot one in Kent, in January. ED. 



f The egg of the cuckoo is less than that of the hedge-sparrow ; thus 

 proving the fitness of all natural bodies to the ends for which they are 

 intended. Were we unacquainted with the fact, that cuckoos do not, 

 like other birds, incubate their own eggs, we would marvel at their great 

 disproportion compared with the size of the bird. There is, no doubt, 

 some wise end to be fulfilled in this singular economy in the habits of the 

 cuckoo, which has yet eluded human scrutiny. ED. 



