ORDER SCANSORES. 525 



hours afterwards the bunting was on the nest, and the egg 

 had experienced no derangement. The following morning I 

 found things in the same state ; but in the evening the nest 

 was abandoned, and the egg was cold. 



" Knowing that goldfinches, linnets, greenfinches, and 

 chaffinches, will readily hatch eggs which may be substituted 

 for their own, I was curious to try what would happen by 

 acting with these species of birds, as the cuckow is habi- 

 tuated to do. Having suffered a greenfinch to hatch her 

 eggs for the space of six days, I took them away, and put one 

 of a blackbird in their place. This was in the evening. The 

 following morning the nest was deserted, and continued to 

 remain so.*" 



This gentleman tried many similar experiments with a great 

 number of other birds of the passerine order, and the result 

 was invariably the same. Scarcely had the eggs been 

 removed, and others substituted, than the nest was abandoned, 

 and never returned to. This ornithologist, in giving an. 

 account of his thirty-first experiment, communicates some 

 observations — the more interesting from the difficulty of 

 making them — relative to the conduct of the yellow-wren 

 warblers towards the young cuckow, and relative to the 

 nursling itself. We give his details in his own lan- 

 guage : — 



" Arriving at the place in the morning, I posted myself 

 advantageously to observe the father and mother, who had 

 undertaken the nursing of the young cuckow. They, how- 

 ever, were extremely shy, and did not approach at last 

 without the greatest possible circumspection. They were, 

 however, obliged to shew themselves in consequence of the 

 cries of the nestling, who had been a considerable while with- 

 out food. I then recognised them to be yellow-wren war- 

 blers. Growing more familiarized with me, they appeared 

 very often, and more than once I had an opportunity of see- 

 ing the nature of the food they provided for their charge. 



