AND THE ROBIN. 



97 



that the cuckoo, like some of our own species, 

 has a clever knack at freeing itself from the 

 duty of providing for its own offspring. This 

 bird is notoriously partial to the homestead of 

 the hedge-sparrow; and thus many a poor 

 hedge-sparrow is saddled with the care and ex- 

 pense of rearing the young of an alien, whose 

 manners and customs are totally different from 

 those of her own tribe. We learn from the 

 story in question, that a young cuckoo, the day 

 after it was hatched, contrived to get a young 

 hedge-sparrow (which was in the same nest 

 with itself) on its back, and proceeded with it, 

 stern foremost, up the side of the nest ; and, on 

 arriving at the summit, jerked its load into the 

 hedge below. The performance of such a feat 

 is impossible. At that period of existence, the 

 legs of the young cuckoo could not support 

 the weight of its own body, to say nothing 

 of the additional load of another upon that 

 body. Again, the supposed act was quite con- 

 trary to any instinct with which the young 

 cuckoo might have been endowed; for, had 

 not the old bird been frightened away, she 

 would have been sitting on the two young ones 

 at the time in which the feat was said to have 



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