78 THE CUCKOO. 



was alive and in good health, in October, 1832, 

 when the narrative reached us, though it probably 

 died in the course of the Winter, the usual fate of 

 numbers which have been kept in a state of con- 

 finement. We do not, indeed, recollect a single 

 well-authenticated instance of one of these birds 

 living for a year, when kept in confinement, which 

 is the more surprising, as their usual insect-food 

 might be generally procured. 



To naturalists, various other peculiarities in the 

 Cuckoo are well known, but in closing our account, 

 we would refer to two, more particularly worthy of 

 notice, as instances of the wonderful manner in 

 which its wants are assisted by nature. The 

 Cuckoo, as we have said, lays its egg in the nest 

 of a small bird; of course, if this egg were large in 

 proportion to the size of the parent bird, it would 

 be far too large for the little nest in which it was 

 placed, and its unnatural size would, moreover, in 

 all probability, frighten the lesser foster-mother, 

 and induce her to desert her own nest; but a 

 Cuckoo's egg is remarkably small, and therefore can 

 be laid, without exciting suspicion, in the midst of 

 others, of a naturally small size. In the next place, 

 it is known that the young Cuckoo always contrives 

 to make room for its increasing size, by throwing 

 the other nestlings out of the nest; but were it of 

 the usual form with other birds, it would find great 

 difficulty in accomplishing this. Nature, however, 

 lends a helping hand, and has given it a remarkable 

 depression or hollow, between its shoulders, into 

 which, by an odd sort of jerk, it contrives to lift 

 the young birds, and then snuffling backwards to the 



