Cuckoo. 289 



her progeny. If this be conceded, and if it be considered 

 possible that diet may affect the colouring matter of the eggs, we 

 are advanced some way on the road towards allowing the plausi- 

 bility of my opinion. 



But I would now observe that if any hen bird of any species 

 arrived at maturity be dissected and examined, it will be found 

 that her ovary will contain the germs of all the eggs she will 

 ever lay during her life-time. It is not impossible, then, that 

 if influenced at all by the nutriment on which she was brought 

 up, she may be permanently influenced, in regard to the colour- 

 ing of all the eggs she will lay ; not to mention that it is far from 

 unlikely that a Cuckoo, hatched by a hedge sparrow or wagtail, 

 might ever after affect the diet to which it was first 

 accustomed, just as an Eton Colleger returns in after-life with 

 extreme relish to the roast mutton which formed his daily dinner 

 at school. 



It is true that in this theory I have no precedent or even 

 analogy in the feathered race to guide me, for how can one 

 expect a precedent in aught that pertains to so exceptional a 

 species as the Cuckoo ? but still I have some sort of corrobora- 

 tive evidence to adduce from the insect world. I allude to the 

 case of bees ; and it is now an acknowledged fact that in the event 

 of any accidental destruction or unexpected loss of the queen bee 

 (when provision had not been made for her successor, after the 

 usual custom, by rearing princesses in the cell specially prepared 

 for the royal brood) the nurses will adopt the grub of an ordinary 

 worker, and by feeding it with a special diet, reserved on other 

 occasions for the royal cells alone, will from that worker grub 

 develop a queen, differing in size and colour as well as vocation 

 from the individual it would under ordinary circumstances have 

 become.* Such a permanent effect in this case has a particular 

 diet on the unconscious and passive infant. 



I repeat that the theory I have been discussing is but a fancy, 

 but possibly it may be worth examination. When first it 

 occurred to me I made an effort to get it corroborated, or over- 



* See Bevan on the Honey Bee, p. 21. 



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