Life-history of the Cuckoo. 



127 



found similarly marked eggs laid by one and the same Cuckoo, in 

 the nests of different species ; and that he has found Cuckoo's eggs 

 (though rarely) in such nests as have not yet received any eggs of the 

 owner, 1 in which case the Cuckoo is without any pattern of a fixed 

 form of colour for its egg. All these points in the argument, are 

 very carefully worked out at considerable length, and a large array 

 of proofs and instances brought forward to support his views ; and 

 then our author deduces the conclusion, that all experience hitherto 

 known declares in favour of his assertion " that every Cuckoo lays 

 eggs of one colouring only, and consequently (as a general rule) 

 lays only in the nest of one species :" and he sums up his argument 

 as follows : " every pair or rather each individual Cuckoo is endowed 

 with the instinct to lay its eggs in the nests of some one species of 

 birds, which are fit to act the part of foster parents : so in order 

 that these latter may the less readily observe the strange egg, it is 

 found to be of similar colouring to their own ; and for the same 

 reasons it is also so disproportionably small. Then every pair of 

 Cuckoos seeks its old district, or that spot where it breeds, just as 

 all other birds do. 2 Here it generally finds those species of insect- 

 ivorous birds which it requires for its peculiar circumstances : but 

 assuredly they are not always in the necessary numbers, or perhaps 

 they may for some cause be breeding earlier or later, than its six 

 to eight weeks time for laying 3 lasts : it will therefore be unable 

 to find for each of its eggs a fitting nest of that species to which 

 it was prepared to entrust it, and to which it was accustomed ; and 

 so it finds itself obliged to introduce one and another egg, into the 

 nests of some other species, if haply by good chance it can do so. 4 



1 This is corroborated in the Naturalist for 1852, p. 33. 

 2 Blyth's edition of White's Selborne, p. 78. 



3 " Legezeit " is the concise German word, for which we have no English 

 equivalent. 



4 The Cuckoo however, alone of British birds, is generally supposed to have 

 the faculty of retaining her egg in the ovarium, after it is arrived at maturity, 

 for a limited period of time. [Montagu's Ornith. Diet. Introduction to vol. i., p. 8. 

 Jesse's Gleanings in Nat. Hist. vol. ii., p. 125.] If this be correct, it will ac- 

 count for the egg laid by the Cuckoo as it fell to the ground after it was 

 shot, recorded by Mr. S. S. Allen, [Ibis. vol. v., p. 358] and by my friend Mr. 



