, HE Cuckoo, as most people know, is a 
T feathered parasite, making no nest of its 
own, but placing its eggs in the habitations of other birds, 
and leaving them there to be hatched by their foster- 
parents. These, strangely enough, never seem to detect the 
imposture which has been practised upon them, but sit 
upon the strange egg together with their own. More remark- 
able still, they do not appear to object when the newly- 
hatched Cuckoo throws their offspring over the side of the 
nest, as it invariably does, in order to monopolize not only 
the whole of the available space, but the supply of food 
which should have sufficed for the entire family. 
The reason for this absence of the home-making instinct 
in the parent Cuckoos appears to be that the male birds 
are very much more plentiful than the hens, which are so 
109 
