Birds. 5323 



out of twelve a jackdaw, magpie, crow, or jay that has clone it, who 

 are ever on the look-out for that purpose, and are most dexterous at 

 such work, and may easily be caught in traps baited with an egg. 



Another reason for supposing cuckoos are not addicted to plunder- 

 ing other birds' nests of their eggs for food, though so often accused 

 of it, is that eggs unquestionably are not their natural food, but 

 grubs and insects, especially caterpillars and winged beetles ; neither 

 are house-ducks' and the larger kinds of birds' nests often supposed 

 to be attacked by cuckoos. That the cuckoo always lays its egg in 

 an insect-feeding bird's-nest, in order that the young one may obtain 

 its proper and natural kind of food, is a strong reason in support of 

 the old ones not changing their diet in after days. It is true that 

 Shakespeare mentions, 



* * * * 



" As that ungentle gull, the cuckoo's bird, 

 Useth the sparrow : did oppress our nest." 



And Dr. Johnson, in a note to the above quotation, states that " the 

 cuckoo's chicken, who, being hatched and fed by the sparrow in 

 whose nest the cuckoo's egg was laid, grows in time able to devour 

 its nurse." Now, the sparrow can hardly be called an exclusively 

 insect-feeding bird, if, as is probable, the common house sparrow is 

 alluded to by Shakespeare, but in whose nest a cuekoo's egg has, I 

 believe, never yet been discovered, though it is found often in that of 

 the hedgesparrow, which is quite a different kind of bird from the 

 other; and although, in an elaborate article in a recently published 

 magazine, much pains are taken to prove Shakespeare was a good 

 naturalist, or rather a correct observer of nature, as to birds, insects, 

 &c, and their habits, it is probable that neither he nor his annotator was 

 either of them aware of the instinct above alluded to, of the cuckoo's 

 selection of the nest of an insect-feeding bird in which to place its 

 egg, with a view to the proper food being provided for its deserted 

 young one, which is left to strangers to its nature to bring up, but 

 whose food is similar to that of the cuckoo's, and known to the latter 

 to be so. Shakespeare did not know this when alluding to the spar- 

 row, any more than did Mr. Tennyson of the habits of the swallow, 

 when he mentions " swallows hunting the bee," which, as Mr. Bro- 

 derip remarks, they never do. Why, then, should so very different a 

 kind of sustenance as other birds' eggs, and with so much difficulty in 

 general to be procured, be selected by cuckoos, when their more na- 

 tural food can be easily obtained by them ? aud because eggs and 



