56 Wizard Cuckoos 



in Wales, the question was once asked whether 

 there were any cuckoos in foreign countries 

 countries, the questioner meant, where there were 

 none of our cuckoo-like hawks. The answer was 

 doubtfully received ; it was a struggle of rationalism 

 with tradition. 



The obscurity of the cuckoo's life and habits lends 

 colour to some more sophisticated errors. Admira- 

 tion has been expressed for the marvellous instinct 

 or intelligence which leads the hen cuckoo always 

 to choose out for her own eggs the nests of insect- 

 eating birds, so that the young cuckoo is provided 

 with its indispensable food. It is true that this is 

 her general practice. But the habit is by no means 

 so invariable as to afford an example of infallible 

 instinct ; and insect-eating foster-parents are by no 

 means so indispensable to the welfare of the young 

 cuckoo as to present her usual preference in the 

 light of a triumph of discrimination. Young 

 cuckoos are occasionally found thriving in the nests 

 of such typical hard-billed, grain-eating birds as the 

 chaffinch. Most, if not all, of our birds which are 

 seed-eaters in maturity are provided with a soft 

 insect diet as nestlings ; and the young cuckoo 

 hatched in a chaffinch's or linnet's nest is not 

 worse fed than if it were the foster-child of a hedge- 

 sparrow or a titlark. But it is unlikely that all 

 would have gone well with the young cuckoo 

 hatched from the egg recorded to have been found 

 in a dabchick's nest. This seems a clear case of a 

 breakdown of parental instinct or judgment in the 

 sole point connected with the care of its offspring > 



