224 ZYGODACTYLES. 



the same species require to raise a brood of five or six of their 

 own species. 



Considering the general distribution and the numbers of 

 cuckoos, the eggs and young have been very seldom seen, 

 probably not one to a million of the birds. When found, it 

 has always been in the nests of other birds, at least in all 

 those of the recorded instances that are received as properly 

 authenticated ; and little birds, pipits and others, have been 

 observed most industriously feeding cuckoos after these had 

 acquired their young or hair-brown plumage, and could fly. 

 But before the habit can be considered as general, there must 

 be numbers of young observed, bearing some nearer propor- 

 tion to the abundance of the old birds, than have yet been 

 found, although the cases that are recorded appear to be too 

 many to be considered accidental ; and the accident, too, is 

 of a kind that rarely happens in the case of any other wild 

 birds that is, birds in a state of nature. The disproval of 

 the old theory, that the bones of the under part of the female 

 cuckoo were such that it could not hatch, throws at least a 

 doubt on the universality of the habit, which would demand 

 some additional proof on the other side, more than three or 

 four isolated cases in the season ; and that is, perhaps, 

 nearly the usual number of young cuckoos that are seen in 

 the nest. 



Still, we may safely conclude that the absolvment of the 

 cuckoo from nest-building and rearing young, which are the 

 severest labours of other birds, is meant to answer, and does 

 answer, some very important purpose in the economy of 

 nature ; and that purpose can be accomplished only by 

 employing in some other way that portion of time in the 

 cuckoo, which, in other birds, is devoted to nidification and 

 nursing. That is the grand point to be ascertained : it can 

 be ascertained only by observation of the most careful nature ; 

 and till it is ascertained, the history of the cuckoo, unques- 



