522 CLASS AVES. ^ 



in a defoliated state. As to the eggs being only two in 

 number, that is decidedly an error, for the females have been 

 found, on dissection, not only to have eggs ready to come 

 forth, but also to have an ovary furnished with as consider- 

 able a number as are found in most other birds. 



The true egg of the cuckow is, according to Montbeillard, 

 more bulky than that of the nightingale — ^less elongated — of 

 a grey colour, nearly whitish, spotted towards the gross end 

 with an obscure violet-brown, and also with a deeper shade 

 of brown, and marked in the middle part with some irregular 

 traits of morone colour. It would appear that these eggs 

 vary in size and colour, for they are small in comparison to 

 the bulk of the bird ; so great indeed is this disproportion, 

 that they are usually less bulky than those of the hedge- 

 sparrow, although the latter bird is, at least, five times 

 smaller than the cuckow. There is a considerable resem- 

 blance between the eggs of these two birds, in the ground 

 colour, and in the spots — at least, in some of them ; others 

 are covered with reddish spots, arranged in no regular order 

 — and some are even seen marked with blackish lines. 



The female, compelled by some law of her organization, 

 respecting which, naturalists are far from being agreed, to 

 confide her eggs to strange nurses, usually deposits but one 

 in the same nest. It rarely occurs to find two of them 

 together. Her selection too does not fall indiscriminately on 

 the nests of all birds. She prefers those of the warblers, 

 field-larks, larks, wagtails, of the red-breast, the wren, the 

 nightingale, &c. ; also those of the thrush, the blackbird, the 

 cole-titmouse, the turtle, the bunting, the greenfinch, the 

 linnet, and the bulfinch. It is very singular to find in the 

 list of the nurses of the young cuckow many birds like the 

 last three just mentioned, which are purely granivorous. 

 They do not feed their own young with insects : nor is it 

 easy to imagine how some of them, from their peculiar mode 



