200 The World-Evidence. 



what a pity it was that Lord Lilford failed to watch 

 the later results there. 



That the cuckoo's eggs, i.e., in these cases, were 

 invariably more advanced towards hatching than the 

 magpie's shows wonderful adaptation in one respect ; 

 for the young cuckoos, which grow very fast, coming 

 first, would have an easy business of throwing out 

 the young magpies as they were hatched. But this 

 repeated finding of three eggs in one nest, and in one 

 case as many as eight to five of the magpie, sug- 

 gests a question that has often been asked. Do the 

 young cuckoos distinguish in favour of their own 

 kind, and abstain the one from trying to turn the other 

 out ? Do they combine in action against the right- 

 ful occupants of the nest, or do they not ? and, if so, 

 how does the matter end ? Do the young cuckoos 

 fight it out, one against another, till the strongest 

 only is left, or are they armed with a special instinct 

 against warring upon each other ? The rare cases in 

 which two cuckoo's eggs have been found in the same 

 nest in England has suggested the question. Lord 

 Lilford's report emphasizes it. We wish some natu- 

 ralist in Spain would carefully investigate the matter, 

 and let us know ; for we are all the more curious that 

 Lord Lilford has, to our grief, passed beyond our 

 asking of him for further light on this special point — 

 on which light is, indeed, very much wanted, as on 

 so many others connected with the cuckoo. If all the 



credible that the pies should bear this wholesale victimization, 

 unless, indeed, the cuckoos took out eggs for those they put in. 

 Manuel de la Torre, the royal keeper at Madrid, knew of in- 

 stances where as many as four eggs of the cuckoo had been 

 found in one magpie's nest. 



