i62 Darwin and Romanes dealt with. 



and most systematic parasitism in this very excep- 

 tional and peculiar form ; or, at what point may it be 

 set down that the occasional and aberrant habit has 

 become what he all too boldly calls " the strange in- 

 stinct." I regard this phrase as in itself very un- 

 happy — and, in fact, un-Darwinian. A progress from 

 an occasional and aberrant habit of this kind very 

 gradually advancing and increasing, because of what 

 he really dwells on as observations of, and reflections 

 on, the benefit derived from it, mark you, not only to 

 the elder cuckoos themselves, but to their young 

 ones, are most decidedly separate and conscious acts 

 of reason and comparative judgment of the finest 

 kind — acts of reason, such as, when we find them 

 paralleled by men in trade or commerce, we have no 

 hesitation in designating by another name than 

 " strange instinct." Instinct in this kind should be 

 in a general way unerring ; but this does not by any 

 means apply to the conduct of the cuckoo, which, 

 looked at from many points, exhibits all the mistakes 

 and errors which Dr. Russel Wallace, dealing with 

 several points about birds, declares to be really a 

 failure of reasoning power, exactly as in the case of 

 men. We could give no end of instances of this, 

 and will do so if challenged. Nor does Mr. Darwin 

 even glance at such cases of clearly exceptional and 

 mis-calculated indulgence as we find in those great- 

 spotted cuckoos of Spain, where such a number of 

 cuckoo's eggs were laid in the nests of the magpies. 

 Clearly, there, a whole class overdoes it. If these 

 young Spanish great-spotted cuckoos have anything 

 in common with the rapacity of all other young 

 cuckoos, there is not the slightest chance of, say. 



