122 



CUCKOO. 



" In the beginning of July, 1792, I was attending- some labourers on 

 my farm, when one of them said to me, ' There is a bird's nest upon 

 one of coal-slack hills : the bird is now sitting-, and is exactly like a 

 Cuckoo. They say that Cuckoos never hatch their own eggs, otherwise 

 I should have sworn it was one.' He took me to the spot : it was in 

 an open fallow ground. The bird was upon the nest : I stood and ob- 

 served her some time, and was perfectly satisfied it was a Cuckoo. I 

 then put my hand towards her, and she almost let me touch her before 

 she rose from the nest, which she appeared to quit with great un- 

 easiness, skimming over the ground in the manner that a hen partridge 

 does when disturbed from a new-hatched brood, and went only to a 

 thicket forty or fifty yards from the nest, and continued there as long 

 as I stayed to observe her, which was not many minutes. In the nest, 

 which was barely a hole scratched out of the coal-slack, in the manner 

 of a plover's nest, I observed three eggs, but did not touch them. As I 

 had labourers constantly at work in that field, I went thither every day, 

 and always looked if the bird was there ; but did not disturb it for seven or 

 eight days, when I was tempted to drive it from the nest, and found two 

 young ones, that appeared to have been hatched for some days, but there 

 was no appearance of the third egg. I then mentioned this extraordi- 

 nary circumstance (for such I thought it) to Mr. and Mrs. Holyoak, of 

 Bidford Grange, Warwickshire, and to Miss M. Willes, who were on a 

 visit at my house, and who all went to see it. Very lately I reminded 

 Mr. Holyoak of it, who told me he had a perfect recollection of the 

 whole ; and that, considering it a curiosity, he walked to look at it 

 several times, was perfectly satisfied as to its being a Cuckoo, and 

 thought her more attentive to her young than any other bird he ever 

 observed, having always found her brooding her young. In about a 

 week after I first saw the young ones one of them was missing, and I 

 rather suspected my ploughboys had taken it, though it might possibly 

 have been taken by a hawk, some time when the old one was seeking 

 food. I never found her off her nest but once, and that was the last 

 time I saw the remaining young one, when it was almost full feathered. 

 I then went from home for two or three days, and when I returned the 

 young one was gone, which I take for granted had flown. Though, 

 during this time, I frequently saw Cuckoos in the thicket I mention, I 

 never saw the cock bird paired with this hen." 1 



Now, I cannot but think that the following remarks of Dr. Jenner 

 leave no doubt that the nest observed by Mr. Wilmot, as well as that 



Darwin's Zoonomia, i. p. 246. 3rd edit. 8vo. 



