I 



520 CLASS AVES. • 



the better to deceive the mother — that she has the habit of 

 hatcliing strange eggs, though she will not hatch her own — 

 that she is accustomed to visit the nest where she has depo- 

 sited her egg from time to time, to drive out or devour the 

 young, that her own offspring may be more at its ease. It is 

 moreover said, that the voracity of the young, even when 

 hardly born, is so great that it will devour the other nest- 

 lings, and the mother also. To this mother, too, the character 

 of a most cruel step-mother has been attributed, who will 

 kill and eat her own offspring, that she may devote herself 

 altogether to the stranger, and lavish all her attentions 

 upon it. 



In fact, if we consult the ancient, and even some modem 

 naturalists, we shall find stories of greater absurdity than 

 those of which we have just given some specimens. It 

 would seem that every thing the most monstrous in fable, or 

 the most odious and criminal in the history of mankind, had 

 been carefully sought out, and attributed to these inoffensive 

 birds : and this, because men could not discover the secret 

 Springs which Nature has employed to give to this species 

 manners, habits, and a mode of life altogether opposite to 

 those of others, and the union of which fixes on the cuckows 

 a distinguishing character from all other known animals. 



It is not certainly known whether the cuckows pair, like 

 most others of the passerine or climbing birds — at least, there 

 are no demonstrative proofs on the subject. When the female 

 flies, she is observed to be followed by two or three males, 

 Avho seem extremely eager to obtain her favour. As the 

 males are much more numerous than the females, they 

 frequently fight desperately for the possession of the latter. 

 Montbeillard tells us, that they evince no choice or predilec- 

 tion in this matter, one female being the same as another, and 

 that they are equally capricious and inconstant in their 

 amours : this must naturally be the case with birds so 

 strangely constituted ; as they have no nests to build, eggs to 



