146 NATURAL HISTORY 



other species/ may it not be owing to the dams being 

 engaged in incubation, while the young are concealed by the 

 leaves ? 



Many times have I had the curiosity to open the stomachs 

 of woodcocks and snipes, but nothing ever occurred that 

 helped to explain to me what their subsistence might be : 

 all that I could ever find was a soft mucus, among which lay 

 many pellucid small gravels. 1 



LETTER IV. 



TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. 



SKLBORNE, Feb. 19, 1770. 



OUR observation, that " the cuckoo does not 

 deposit its egg indiscriminately in the nest 

 of the first bird that comes in its way, but 

 probably looks out a nurse in some degree 

 congenerous, with whom to intrust its 

 young/' is perfectly new to me, and struck me so forcibly, 

 that I naturally fell into a train of thought that led me to 

 consider whether the fact was so, and what reason there was 



1 That good observer, Mr. Thompson, in his " Natural History of 

 Ireland" (Birds, vol. ii. [> 239) states that on examination of the 

 stomachs of thirteen woodcocks, killed at different periods and in every 

 kind of weather, from October to March, one was found to contain only 

 small pebbles ; ten vegetable matter, chiefly Conferva (in one instance 

 an aquatic moss), and several of them worms of small or moderate size, 

 insect larvae and aquatic coleoptera, together with a few pebbles. The 

 vegetable matter, of which there is often a considerable quantity, 

 probably remains intact after the gastric juice has acted on the worms 

 and other animal food, and thus appears disproportionate to the other 

 contents. As to the food of snipe, he says (toni. cit. p. 2G8), " The 

 contents of the stomach of seven of these birds, which were particularly 

 examined, and all from different localities, were as follows : Of three 

 shot in the month of January, two contained a few seeds, and the third 

 was half filled with soft vegetable matter ; two shot in March exhibited 

 the remains of vegetable food, which resembled Conferva; of two killed 



