34 Life History of Common Cuckoo. 



ful as the powers of the young cuckoo in turning 

 eggs and foster-brothers out of the nest when a few 

 days old. And this is all the more extraordinary in 

 that a very careful observer has told us that in swim- 

 ming " old and young dabchicks use their legs like a 

 frog, horizontally, striking both at once, and bringing 

 their feet together at the end of the stroke. I have 

 seen the old ones diving " [and swimming ?] " in 

 clear water some distance, but they did not use their 

 wings." * 



This is the more curious and suggestive, surely, 

 that Professor A. Newton, as quoted above, is clear 

 that on a flat surface the wings are at least as much 

 called on in locomotion as the legs are, if indeed they 

 are not more efficient than the legs in aiding the 

 young dabchick here. But in these matters, where 

 observation of the creature in wild nature can be but 

 in hurried broken glimpses, much must always be 

 doubtful. The point here is that since the wings are 

 not used in swimming but the feet, the feet and legs 

 should not have been more developed and the wings 

 less developed at this stage in view of what, accord- 

 ing to all the reasoning we can base on observed 

 facts, it would earliest want to use both on land 

 and in the water for its protection and escape from 

 enemies. 



Then there is that truly unique bird — the Hoatzin 

 — a native of South America and the West Indies, 

 which is endowed with a peculiar power of moving 

 about almost from the first. A curved or hooked nail 

 is developed even in the egg on the finger points of 



* Mr. Bryan Hook in Seebohm's British Birds, quoted by Dr. 

 Bowdler Sharpe in Handbook (Allen's), vol. iv, p. 210. 



