cow BUNTING. 



149 



owner, and the consequent loss of the egg thus dropped in it by 

 the intruder. But when the owner herself has begun to lay, and 

 there are one or more eggs in the nest before the Cow Bunting de- 

 posits hers, the attachment of the proprietor is secured, and re- 

 mains unshaken until incubation is fully performed, and the little 

 stranger is able to provide for itself. 



The well known practice of the young Cuckoo of Europe in 

 turning out all the eggs and young which it feels around it, almost 

 as soon as it is hatched, has been detailed in a very satisfactory and 

 amusing manner, by the amiable Dr. Jenner,^ who has since risen 

 to immortal celebrity, in a much nobler pursuit ; and to whose ge- 

 nius and humanity the whole human race are under everlasting 

 obligations. In our Cow Bunting, tho no such habit has been ob- 

 served; yet still there is something mysterious in the disappearance 

 of the nurse's own eggs soon after the foundling is hatched, which 

 happens regularly before all the rest. From twelve to fourteen 

 days is the usual time of incubation with our small birds ; but altho 

 I cannot exactly fix the precise period requisite for the egg of the 

 Cow Bunting, I think I can say almost positively, that it is a day 

 or two less than the shortest of the above mentioned spaces ! In 

 this singular circumstance we see a striking provision of the Deity; 

 for did this egg require a day or two more instead of so much less 

 than those among which it has been dropped, the young it contain- 

 ed would in every instance most inevitably perish; and thus in a 

 few years the whole species must become extinct. On the first ap- 

 pearance of the young Cow Bunting, the parent being frequently 

 obliged to leave the nest to provide sustenance for the foundling, 

 the business of incubation is thus necessarily interrupted; the dis- 

 position to continue it abates; nature has now given a new direc- 

 tion to the zeal of the parent, and the remaining eggs, within a day 

 or two at most, generally disappear. In some instances, indeed^ 



* See Philosophical Transactions for 1788, Part II. 

 VOL. II. P p 



