124 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



bird, since the differences in size and colouring 

 between the foster-parent and its false offspring are 

 so much greater in its case. Here Nature's un- 

 naturalness in such an instinct — z close union of 

 the beautiful and the monstrous — is seen in its 

 extreme form. The hawk-like figure and markings 

 of the cuckoo serve only to accentuate the disparity, 

 which is perhaps greatest when the parent is the 

 hedge-sparrow — so plainly-coloured a bird, so shy 

 and secretive in its habits. One never ceases to be 

 amazed at the blindness of the parental instinct in 

 so intelligent a creature as a bird in a case of this 

 kind. Some idea of how blind it is may be formed 

 by imagining a case in widely separated types of 

 our own species, which would be a parallel to that 

 of the cuckoo and the hedge-sparrow. Let us 

 imagine that some malicious Arabian Nights' genius 

 had snatched up the infant male child of a Scan- 

 dinavian couple — ^the largest of their nation ; and 

 flying away to Africa with it, to the heart of the great 

 Aruwhimi forest, had laid it on the breast of a little 

 coffee - coloured, woolly - headed, spindle - shanked, 

 pot-bellied pigmy mother, taking away at the same 

 time her own newly born babe ; that she had ten- 

 derly nursed the substituted child, and reared and 

 protected it, ministering, according to her lights, to 

 all its huge wants, until he had come to the fullness 

 of his stature, yet never suspected that the magni- 



