202 The World-Evidence. 



cumstances, believes that the bird incubates it^ egg 

 or eggs, but leaves its young to be fed by other birds, 

 who take care of and feed the youngsters, moved by 

 their piteous cries. He does not believe that the 

 cuckoo could possibly deposit the egg in certain 

 nests, which, by the way, he holds, could not support 

 the weight of the young cuckoo if they did the egg, 

 which is large and heavy, and certainly his idea is 

 that these small birds could never hatch it : it is 

 about 1-25 by i'i5. One pecuhar point is that young 

 birds are frequently met with in the end of March or 

 later, but it seems probable that these are only soli- 

 tary individuals hatched too late to permit of their 

 joining in the return migration. 



The shining cuckoo, he tells, acts somewhat differ- 

 ently from the long-tailed cuckoo as to breeding, etc., 

 and it is a very much smaller bird — the victim in its 

 case also being generally the grey warbler ; but its 

 egg is much smaller than the other, only '8 of an 

 inch in length by -5 in breadth, and, in this case as 

 with ours, the true progeny are ejected by the young 

 cuckoo. 



The Rev. R. Taylor tells that he discovered the 

 nest of a grey warbler in his garden shrubbery, con- 

 taining several eggs, and among them a large white 

 one, which he correctly assigned to the shining cuckoo. 



" In due time all the eggs were hatched ; but after 

 the lapse of a day or two, the young cuckoo was the 

 sole tenant of the nest, and the dead bodies of the 

 others were found lying on the ground below. At 

 length the usurper left the nest, and for many days 

 after both of the foster-parents were incessantly on 

 the wing from morning till night, catering for their 



