CEREBRAL DEVELOPMENT OF BIRDS. 85 



Philoprogenitive!! ess is developed in each species. The 

 apparently unnatural conduct of the European cuckow, 

 ( Cuculus canorus J, in leaving to another bird the maternal 

 duty of bringing up its own offspring, has not escaped the 

 attention of naturalists. In the writings of Pliny, and even 

 of Aristotle, this circumstance is mentioned as one of the 

 most curious anomalies we meet with in nature ; and al- 

 though the fact has often been doubted, yet modern writers, 

 as Jenner, Montagu, and others, have completely establish- 

 ed its truth. Yaillant, during his travels in Southern 

 Africa, met with another species of cuckow, ( C. auratus ), 

 which acts in a similar manner ; and Temrainck, in his 

 Manuel d Ornithologie, expressly states, that the genuine 

 cuckows, by some means not yet positively ascertained, 

 deposit their eggs in the nests of different species of small 

 birds. We thus find it established by the highest autho- 

 rity, that some species of hirds do not seem to possess the 

 faculty of philoprogenitiveness ; and in order to account 

 for this strange deficiency, Gall has stated, that the organ 

 is " extremely defective" in the European cuckow, the only 

 one he had an opportunity of examining. However, as 

 the situation which he assigned to the organ in question, 

 though strictly analogous to its site in man, is deemed by 

 Vimont to be occupied by another organ, we shall consider 

 the faculty as residing in the cerebral portion pointed out 

 by the latter author. It is easy to perceive an evident de- 

 pression on each side, at the lateral and posterior regions 

 of the cranium ; and thus far the habits of the bird and its 

 phrenological development appear to coincide. I say ap- 

 pear only, for if we proceed a step farther in our investiga- 

 tion, a curious fact will he brought to light. 



