THE COMMON CUCKOO. 115 



It is scarcely necessary for us to do more than allude to the 

 difference of opinion which exists on this subject, which has vet 

 to be settled by close and attentive investigation, as have several 

 other disputed points in the natural history of the Cuckoo : foi 

 instance, whether the female bird ever utters that peculiar cry 

 from which the name of the species is derived, and whether she 

 deposits her egg indiscriminately in the first nest which comes iu 

 her way, or, as Mr. DAINES BAEEINGTON asserts, " looks out a 

 nurse in some degree congenerous, with whom to entrust her 

 young ;" again, whether she lays one egg only in a season, or 

 several in different nests, and how she manages to convey her 

 egg into some of the nests in which it has been found, having au 

 aperture much too small for it to be ejected therein in the usual 

 manner ; some affirm that the beak of the bird, and others the 

 claw, is the instrument used for that purpose. Then, again, is 

 the Cuckoo only an insectivorous and frugivorous bird ? is it also 

 granivorous? nay, is it not carnivorous? According to AEISTOTLE 

 and PLINY (and LINNJEUS appears to have believed this), the 

 young Cuckoo, when it had attained a sufficient size, would 

 sometimes kill and eat its foster-mother ; hence SHAKSPEARE 

 makes the Fool in King Lear say : 



" The Hedge-sparrow fed the Cuckoo so long, 

 That it had its head' bit off by its young," 



in allusion to the unnatural conduct of the unhappy monarch's 

 daughters. In the play of Henry IV. also, there is an allusion 

 of a similar character. Then, why does not the Cuckoo incubate 

 like other birds P The French anatomist, M. HEBISSANT, dis- 

 covers a reason in its peculiar anatomical structure ; but, says 

 GILBEET WHITE, here is the Fern-owl, which closely resembles 

 it, and which does incubate ; and several other species might be 

 named, which have just as good an excuse for neglecting the du- 

 ties of maternity. Does the Cuckoo turn out the other eggs 

 which she may find laid in a nest, previous to depositing her own 

 there P Does she watch about the spot where this deposit has 

 been made, and have an eye, as it were, upon her offspring ? or 

 is she wholly without parental care and affection? Does the 

 voung Cuckoo shovel up, by means of a certain depression in its 

 oack, the eggs and young birds which incommode it, and tilt 

 them over the edge of the nest, as Dr. JENNEE asserts P and doe? 

 the Titling, or the Wagtail, as the case may be, in five instances 

 out of six, forthwith eject from its nest the intruded egg of the 

 Cuckoo P All these, and half a hundred other equally strange 

 assertions, have been made and supported by good authorities, 

 in reference to this bird, which is such a perfect feathered mys- 



