326 Wild Lifein a Southern County. 
sufficient to account for their motions. But about the 
fact of the lesser birds chasing the cuckoo there is no. 
doubt. Are they endeavouring to drive her away that 
she may not lay her egg in either of their nests? In 
any case it is clear that birds do recognise the cuckoo. 
as something distinct from themselves, and therefore 
I will never believe that the foster-parent for a moment 
supposes the young cuckoo to be its own offspring. 
To our eyes one young robin (meaning out of the 
nest—on the hedge) is almost identical with another 
young robin ; to our ears the querulous cry of one for 
food is confusingly like that of another: yet the 
various parent birds easily distinguish, recognise, and 
feed their own young. Then to suppose that, with 
such powers of observation—with the keenness of vision 
that can detect an insect or a worm moving in the 
grass from a branch twenty feet or more above it, and 
detect it while to all appearance engaged in watching 
your approach—to suppose that the robin does not 
know that the cuckoo is not of its order is past credit. 
The robin is much too intelligent. Why, then, does 
he feed the intruder? There is something here ap- 
proaching to the sentiment of humanity, as we should 
call it, towards the fellow-creature. 
The cuckoo remained in the cage for some time 
after it had attained sufficient size to shift for itself, 
but the robins did not desert it: they clearly under- 
stood that while thus confined it had no power of ob- 
taining food and must starve. Unfortunately, a cat 
