igo Darwin and Romanics dealt with. 



bird, should invariably be to turn out, build over, or 

 puncture the cuckoo's egg to prevent hatching, and 

 one or other of the victimised little birds could unfail- 

 ingly do so, as some among them now do. 



And finally, we ask, and ask seriously, how this 

 bears on what is called the " survival of the fittest " 

 — the little birds that will most successfully bear the 

 heavy tax of feeding the big, gutsy cuckoo for so long 

 a period, are, speaking reasonably, those that would 

 most successfully have reared their own young : and, 

 being healthy, strong and enduring, have had strong, 

 healthy progeny — the " fittest " in view of the general 

 qualities of their own species. A clear and explicit 

 answer to this argument will oblige. But, indeed, 

 Mr. Darwin himself anticipated the ground on which 

 we here stand. " Many instincts," he says, " are so 

 wonderful that this development will probably appear 

 to the reader a difficulty sufficient to overcome my 

 whole theory."* 



These extraordinary powers in the young monster, 

 the alien intruded cuckoo, on which we dwelt in the 

 earHer part, seem to work on the victimised adult 

 birds, many of them, with something like fascination. 

 They actually lose all sense of protective duty towards 

 their own young in an admiring wonder of this over- 

 grown, greedy glutton, and, when all the legitimate 

 progeny have gone, they devote themselves to feeding 

 and attending to him with what seems a sense of pro- 

 found pride and joy. 



Here we refer once again (for it demands reiteration 



* Origin of Species, p. 205. 



