26 A CATALOGUE OF THE BIEDS 



Medical School, informs me that he set a domestic Pigeon with 

 Waterhen's eggs, and they were duly hatched. Yarrell, in his 

 "History of British Birds," mentions a Buzzard that hatched 

 and reared several broods of the Common Fowl. All birds, of 

 whatever colour their eggs may usually be, occasionally lay a 

 white one, and these are incubated just as freely as if they were 

 of the normal colour. Such being the case, what necessity is 

 there for the theory of Dr. Baldamus ? 



Another point in the history of the Cuckoo seems still to be 

 undecided. How are the young of the foster parents thrown out 

 of the nest, as they always are a day or two after they are 

 hatched ? After Dr. Jenner's account of this performance, pub- 

 lished in the ''Philosophical Transactions" for 1788, it would 

 seem quite impossible that any one should refuse to believe that 

 this is achieved by the young Cuckoo. Yet such is the case, 

 notwithstanding the corroborative testimony and experiments of 

 Montagu (Ornithological Dictionary, Ed. 2, p. 117). This in- 

 teresting fact has, however, been recently confirmed by a letter 

 which appeared in "IS'ature," 14th May, 1872. This letter is 

 by J. B., author of " Caw Caw," and contains an account of the 

 process of ejection as witnessed by the writer, and it agrees per- 

 fectly with those originally published by Dr. Jenner and Mon- 

 tagu, so that now we have demonstrations of the fact by three 

 competent eye-witnesses of it; and if such testimony is to be 

 rejected, what other is to be believed? 



The young of the foster parents are thrown out a day or two 

 after they are hatched, and while the young Cuckoo is apparently 

 so feeble that it might be supposed that it did not possess the 

 power to accomplish such a feat. Hence it is, that the fact is 

 by some persons still disputed. It is quite certain, however, that 

 the young are ejected very soon after they are hatched : of this I 

 have conclusive proof. On the 6th June, 1864, I observed a nest 

 of the Hedge Accentor, which contained five eggs, four belong- 

 ing to this bird, and one to the Cuckoo. I visited the nest again 

 on the 8th June, and found three young Hedge Accentors and 

 tlic Cuckoo hatched, one of the Hedge Accentor's eggs having 

 disappeared : the three young Hedge Accentors lay on one side 



