230 The World-Evidence. 



cate sea-green eggs " — which, mark you, the " nearly 

 enough " above by impHcation told that they did not 

 — not quite all hke the auctioneer's going- going — 

 gone — not quite all ! 



The good character of these species is undoubtedly 

 going year by year, and various instances, most dis- 

 tinctly indicating this, were published prior even to 

 the date of Professor Newton's Encyclopcsdia Brit- 

 annica article ; and they had increased to a large 

 volume before he issued his Dictionary of Birds in 

 1893. So notorious is this now that, under the head- 

 ing " Canada" — Canada very significantly not being 

 mentioned in the above passage, though it is like to 

 become more and more important in this respect — in 

 section. Distribution of Birds in Encyclopcedia Brit- 

 annica, Professor Newton, in next edition, will need 

 to add that these two species of American cuckoos, to 

 which he has referred, have there, as in a middle 

 connecting land between this country and the United 

 States, shown most markedly the process of passage 

 of cuckoos in America towards affinity with our own 

 common cuckoos in their parasitic habits, and not 

 " faithfully incubating (all J their delicate sea-green 

 eggs." Since 1882, as the evidence of Mr. Macllwraith 

 and others efficiently shows, instances have increased 

 in a remarkable ratio — all to the same effect. 



Mr. Darwin's own statement about the " occasional 

 habit " of depositing eggs in other birds' nests as 

 suggesting but a step in the progress towards can- 

 orus's " wicked waze," might have given pause to 

 Professor Newton's pen on this point, or given im- 

 petus to it ; and ought even now to make him pull up 

 (his attention having thus been emphatically directed 



