98 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



what species are suitable and congenerous nursing-mothers for its dis- 

 regarded eggs and young, and may deposit them only under their care, 

 this would be adding wonder to wonder, and instancing, in a fresh 

 manner, that the methods of Providence are not subjected to any mode 

 or rule, but astonish us in new lights, and in various and changeable 

 appearances.* 



What was said by a very ancient and sublime writer concerning the 

 defect of natural affection in the ostrich, may be well applied to the 

 bird we are talking of : 



" She is hardened against her young ones, as though they were not 

 hers : 



" Because God hath deprived her of wisdom, neither hath he imparted 

 to her understanding, "f 



Query. Does each female cuckoo lay but one egg in a season, or 

 does she drop several in different nests according as opportunity offers ] 



I am, &c. 



LETTEE Y. 



TO THE SAME. 



SELBORNE, April 12th, 1770. 



DEAR SIR, I heard many birds of several species sing last year after 

 Midsummer ; enough to prove that the summer solstice is not the 

 period that puts a stop to the music of the woods. The yellowhammer 

 no doubt persists with more steadiness than any other; but the 

 woodlark, the wren, the redbreast, 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 blackcap 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 

 birdcatcher ; 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 



* We do not know exactly the instinctive motive which influences the cuckoo in 

 the deposition of its eggs. Locality in this may have its influence, and the cuckoos 

 frequenting a woodland and cultivated district, may seek other fostermothers from 

 those which visit a more open country. Upon the edges of cxiltivated grounds, 

 bordering on a subalpine district where there is natural copse-wood ; and there is 

 no locality more in favour with the cuckoo ; the nest of the titlark, Anthus pratensis, 

 is that most frequently selected : that of the ring dove, as quoted above, is a most 

 unlikely resort to be chosen : an unerring instinct guides the parent ; the dissimi- 

 larity of the egg would have been at once discovered, and the important fact of 

 the intruder requiring to be the strongest, and to keep the nest for himself would 

 in this case most probably be reversed. We have known the egg of the cuckoo to 

 be deposited in the nest of the chaffinch, to which Mr. White's objection will not 

 stand, for he had overlooked the fact that all the finches, and some others, which 

 are commonly called "hard-billed birds," feed their young upon insects, cater- 

 pillars, &c. ; and during summer are themselves most useful to the gardener to 

 keep in check many of his most troublesome enemies. See also White's remarks 

 the cuckoj, Lottor VII. to Barrington, p. 103. f Job xxxix, 16, 17. 



