ORDER SCANSORES. 515 



nearly united to the back, and totally covered by the intes- 

 tines ; in the cuckow, on the contrary, its position is totally 

 different : it is placed in the lower region of the belly, and 

 absolutely covers the intestines. From this position of the 

 stomach, it follows that the process of incubation is as difficult 

 to the cuckow, as it is easy to other birds, in which those 

 parts which immediately cover the eggs and the young are 

 soft, and capable of yielding without danger to the compres- 

 sion which they must experience. In the cuckow, on the 

 other hand, the membranes of the stomach are charged with 

 the weight of the body, and being compressed between the 

 aliments within, and hard bodies without, must experience a 

 painful pressure, and one injurious to digestion. Montbeil- 

 lard does not regard this difference of conformation as a cause 

 capable of rendering the cuckow unfit for incubation ; he 

 considers that the stomach is not too hard, because its 

 parietes are membranous ; and that if ever it be hard, it is 

 only accidentally so, in consequence of repletion, a case which 

 rarely occurs to a female when hatching. 



There is one point of great importance relative to this 

 phenomenon, which is not yet cleared up. It is certain that the 

 female cuckow deposits her eggs in strange nests, usually one in 

 each ; but what may be the means which she employs of doing 

 this, in many cases it is very difficult to conjecture, — in such 

 nests, for instance, as those of many warblers, of the red- 

 breast, the yellow wren warbler, &c., which are far from being 

 proportioned to her size, or capable of sustaining her weight, 

 without being deranged. The nest of the yellow wren war- 

 bler presents peculiar difficulties, for it is constructed in the 

 form of an oven, with a very small aperture on the anterior 

 side ; yet the cuckow's egg has been found in this very nest, 

 and the nest uninjured, so that she must have introduced it 

 without entering the nest. M. Le Vaillant tells us, that he 

 remarked the female of an African cuckow, which swallowed 



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