4288 Birds. 



sized apple in her bill, and running off with it among the sedge, 

 which feat seems to have astonished the writer not a little. Another 

 correspondent of the same periodical relates how a sitting* duck took 

 from her nest an egg (which proved to be addled) in her bill, and car- 

 ried it a short distance; of which proceeding the writer was an eye- 

 witness, (Zool. 2456). 



I have abstained as yet from saying one word about the cuckoo ; 

 but if we can establish as a fact that the hedge accentor, the pheasant, 

 the skylark, the dunlin, the moorhen, the partridge and others, can, 

 when occasion requires, fly off with their respective eggs in their 

 mouths, I apprehend we shall have little difficulty in concluding that 

 the cuckoo is quite able to carry in its bill its own egg, which 

 is so very small in proportion to the size of the parent bird. If then 

 the cuckoo is well able to transport its egg in its mouth, what hinders 

 us from believing that she does so, especially when so many instances 

 are recorded of the egg being found in nests into which it was quite 

 impossible for so large a bird to have entered ? and when, in almost 

 all cases, to sit on the nest selected (excepting when it happens to be 

 on the ground) must be a work of considerable difficulty for so dispro- 

 portionate a form ? But the strongest argument in support of this 

 theory yet remains to be stated : it is from analogy. La Yaillant and 

 his faithful attendant, the Hottentot Klaas, killed several specimens of 

 an African cuckoo [Cuculus auratus) in the very act of transporting 

 their eggs in their mouths : this fact added to the above reasons seems 

 to me to point very clearly to the method adopted by our English 

 species. And I conclude that many species of birds do occasionally, 

 as exigency requires; and that the cuckoos do very frequently, carry 

 their eggs from one place to another in their beaks. 



And now in regard to removing their young. No one can doubt 

 that the parent birds of some species must contrive to effect their 

 removal by some means, when the young are quite unable to assist 

 themselves. Thus, several species of ducks build in holes of trees at 

 a considerable height above the ground, and they must carry their 

 progeny to the water, if they would not see them break their necks in 

 endeavouring to descend. The woodcocks and terns generally breed 

 at a considerable distance from their feeding places, whither unaided 

 it would be quite impossible for their newly hatched young to follow 

 them, and yet there they may be seen with their parents. The guille- 

 mots and razorbills breed on lofty and precipitous cliffs, but their 

 young, on first emerging from the egg, are only clothed with down, 

 and must be dashed in pieces against the rocks, if they attempt 



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