400 Parasite Habits of the Night-jar^ 



Since writing the above, I have met with two instances in 

 which I think the night-jar (Caprimuigus europae^us) has been 

 taken for a cuckoo, as in the preceding ones the cuckoo was 

 taken for a night-jar. In a manuscript of Derham's on instinct, 

 communicated by Pennant to Daines Harrington, it is stated 

 that " the Rev. Mr. Stafford was walking in Glossop Dale, in 

 the Peak of Derbyshire, and saw a cuckoo rise from its nest, 

 which was on the stump of a tree that had been some time 

 felled, so as much to resemble the colour of the bird. In 

 this nest were two young cuckoos, one of which he fastened 

 to the ground by means of a peg and line, and very frequently, 

 for many days, beheld the old cuckoo feed there her young 

 ones." * From this Dr. Fleming hastily leaps to the conclu- 

 sion, that, " in some cases, the cuckoo constructs its own 

 nest ;" and hence he gives it as a characteristic of the species : 

 " Nest seldom constructed by the cuckoo itself, the eggs being 

 generally dropped, separately, into the nests of the hedge 

 sparrow, &c., in the temporary absence of their owner." f If 

 Dr. Fleming, however, will take the trouble to peruse the fol- 

 lowing statements of Dr. Darwin and Dr. Jenner, we think 

 he may be induced (as he seems fond of changes) to alter his 

 opinion : — 



" The following extract," says Darwin, " of a letter from 

 the Rev. Mr. Wilmot of Morley, near Derby, strengthens 

 the truth of the fact above mentioned, of the cuckoo some- 

 times making a nest, and hatching her own young. 



" In the beginning of July, 1792, I was attending some 

 labourers on my farm, when one of them said to me, ' There 

 is a bird's nest upon one of coal-slack hills : the bird is now 

 sitting, and is exactly like a cuckoo. They say that cuckoos 

 never hatch their own eggs, otherwise I should have sworn it 

 was one.* He took me to the spot ; it was in an open fallow 

 gi'ound. The bird was upon the nest : I stood and observed 

 her some time, and was perfectly satisfied it was a cuckoo. I 

 then put my hand towards her, and she almost let me touch 

 her before she rose from the nest ; which she appeared to quit 

 with great uneasiness, skimming over the ground in the man- 

 ner that a hen partridge does when disturbed from a new- 

 hatched brood, and went only to a thicket 40 or 50 yards 

 from the nest, and continued there as long as I stayed to ob- 

 serve her, which was not many minutes. In the nest, which 

 was barely a hole scratched out of the coal-slack, in the man- 

 ner of a plover's nest, I observed three eggs, but did not 



* Philosophical Transactions for 1772, p. 299. 

 t British Zool., p, 90. 



