OF SELBOENE 103 



generous nursing-mothers for it's disregarded eggs and young, 

 and may deposit them only under their care,i this would be add- 

 ing wonder to wonder, and instancing, in a fresh manner, that 

 the methods of Providence are not subjected to any mode or 

 rule, but astonish us in new lights, and in various and changeable 

 appearances. 



What was said by a very ancient and sublime writer concern- 

 ing the defect of natural affection in the ostrich, may be well 

 applied to the bird we are talking of: 



" She is hardened against her young ones, as though they mere not 

 " hers : 



" Because God hath deprived her of wisdom, neither hath he im- 

 " parted to her understanding." ^ 



Query. Does each female cuckoo lay but one egg in a season, 

 or does she drop several in different nests according as oppor- 

 tunity offers ? ^ 



LETTER V. 



TO THE SAME. 



I am, &c. 



Selborne, April 12, 1770. 



Dear Sir, 



I HEARD many birds of several species sing last year after Mid- 

 summer ; enough to prove that the summer solstice is not the 

 period that puts a stop to the music of the woods. The yellow- 

 hammer no doubt persists with more steadiness than any other ; 

 but the woodlark, the wren, the redbreast, the swallow, the 

 white-throat, the goldfinch, the common linnet, are all undoubted 

 instances of the truth of what I advanced. 



1 [It is now regarded as probable that each cuckoo deposits her egg always in a 

 nest of the same species, and that species the one to which that individual cuckoo 

 (and her progenitors) were indebted for nurture ; further, that her egg as a rule, 

 though not invariably, more or less resembles those of the victim.] 



2 Job xx.xix. 16, 17. 



^ [This question has not yet been certainly answered ; but the general result of 

 the evidence seems to be that one cuckoo lays five eggs, or sometimes one or two 

 more, in a season. See A. H. Evans' Birds (1898), p. 354. 



White does not mention Jenner's paper on the cuckoo in the Phil. Trans, 

 for 1788, which appeared after the foregoing letter was written, but before its 

 pubUcation. This celebrated paper contains the most important observations 

 hitherto made on the habits of the cuckoo. The chief results of more recent 

 inquiry will be foimd in Harting's Summer Migrants, and in Newton's Dictionary 

 of Birds. '\ 



