Common Cuckoo. 275 



erroneously) to be common to both sexes.* Lastly, I will repeat 

 that the female has that strange peculiarity of depositing her 

 eggs singly in the nests of other species, which she selects as suit- 

 able foster-parents to her own young : a peculiarity not shared in 

 by any others of our British birds, though by no means unknown 

 among the feathered tribes of other countries the Cowbird, for 

 example, of America, j- which belongs to the Starling tribe, several 

 species of the African Cuckoos, and others. It is from this last 

 eccentricity of conduct that so many strange and unlooked-for 

 habits of the Cuckoo take their rise. Let us examine them one by 

 one ; but first let me earnestly protest against the unmeaning out- 

 cry and charge of unnatural, unfeeling conduct often preferred 

 against the Cuckoo,! as if she did not follow out the instincts of 

 her nature as truly as every other bird ; and as if there was not 

 some good and sufficient reason (though we may be unable to 

 fathom it) why some species delegate the care of their young to 

 other birds : rather, I think, should we admire the wonderful 

 instinct which leads them to select, as foster-parents, those species 

 only whose feeding is similar to their own, and so would provide 

 their young with suitable nourishment; and that dexterity which 

 enables them to insert their eggs amongst others, just at the right 

 moment when the foster-parent is preparing to sit. 



And here I beg to state without hesitation that never by any 

 possibility does our British Cuckoo either build a nest of her own 

 or incubate her eggs on the ground. We hear constant tales of 

 such occurrences : every year our periodicals and newspapers con- 

 tain statements of such marvellous incidents, which would be 

 marvellous indeed if true ; but I venture to assert most positively, 

 without fear of contradiction, that all such stones have originated 

 from some error : and either the common Night-jar,|| of nearly the 



* Magazine of Natural History, vol. viii., pp. 329-382. Naturalist for 

 1851, pp. 11, 172. 



t Wilson's 'American Ornithology,' vol. ii., p. 162. 



Bishop Stanley's ' Familiar History of Birds,'' vol. ii., p. 80. 



Gilbert White's Natural History of Selborne,' Letter iv. 



|| Montagu's Supplement to ' Ornithological Dictionary/ vol. ii. Rennie's- 

 ' Architecture of Birds,' p. 380. G. White's ' Selborne,' Letter vii. 



182 



