120 



CUCKOO. 



they depart from us ; but we cannot help doubting', whether more than 

 one lot of eggs is laid during its continuation in this country ; and that 

 alone may be a work of time, for the reasons before mentioned. 



If a Cuckoo continued laying each day successively, from the time of 

 her excluding the first egg till near the time of migrating, surely a greater 

 number of eggs or young of that bird would be found, especially as they 

 are so dispersed; but, on the contrary, although we have been anxious to 

 procure the eggs or young for several years together, we have not been 

 able to succeed ; yet the old birds have been in plenty about us. 



* Should there be no mistake in the fact of the Cuckoo's egg 

 having been found in the nests of wrens, it may well excite a question 

 in what manner it was introduced ; for the entrance of any of these 

 little nests being in the side, and not more than an inch or an inch and 

 a half in diameter either way, it is obviously impossible so large a bird 

 as the Cuckoo could get into the nest, which is barely wide enough to 

 admit the wren herself. But even if we reject (though we have no 

 good reason to do so) the evidence of M. Montbeillard with respect to 

 the wrens, we cannot refuse to believe the accuracy of Dr. Jenner, who 

 found a Cuckoo's egg in the nest of a wagtail in a hole under the eave of a 

 cottage ; though I think this was rather a singular place for a wagtail to 

 build. Nay even leaving these domed nests with a narrow entrance out of 

 the question, and taking the nests most usually chosen by the Cuckoo for 

 her progeny, we must conclude that she cannot in many instances sit upon 

 the nest while depositing her egg. She may indeed, in many instances, 

 manage this in the nests of the larks ; and in the wagtail's when built as it 

 usually is, on the ground ; but the case is very different with the hedge- 

 sparrow, the green-bird, the linnet, or the white-throat, all of whose 

 nests are usually placed in thick thorn-bushes, or among brambles, 

 and so closely fenced in therewith, that the school-boy can with diffi- 

 culty reach in his hand (which is not one-third the size of a Cuckoo) to 

 rob them of their eggs. From these facts,' which I have not seen 

 placed in this point of view in the works of previous naturalists, I think 

 I am fully entitled to infer, that it is physically impossible for the 

 Cuckoo to sit upon the nests in question, when she deposits her egg. 

 I am sorry however that I cannot offer anything beyond conjecture as 

 to the actual manner in which the thing is done ; though Vaillant 

 obtained pretty satisfactory evidence, that one at least of the African 

 Cuckoos carries the egg in her bill, in order to lay it in nests having a 

 narrow side entrance, such as that of the capocier (Sylvia macroura, 

 Latham.) M. Vaillant likewise found an egg supposed to be that of 

 another Cuckoo, which he calls edolio, (Cuculus melanoleucos, Tem- 



