120 
THE BIRDS OF HAMPSHIRE. 
in 1902, that he saw a cuckoo being mobbed by small 
birds in his garden at Sandown, in the Isle of Wight, on 
November 29th. He noticed that caterpillars were particu- 
larly abundant at the same time. 
Gilbert White writes ^ : " When I came to recollect and 
inquire, I could not find that any cuckoo had ever been 
seen in these parts except in the nest of the wagtail, the 
hedge-sparrow, the tit-lark, the whitethroat, and the red- 
breast, all soft-billed insectivorous birds .... Should it 
appear that this simple bird, when divested of that natural 
(TTOpyr) that seems to raise the kind in general above them- 
selves, and inspire them with extraordinary degrees of 
cunning and address, may be still endued with a more 
enlarged faculty of discerning what species are suitable and 
congenerous nursing-mothers for its disregarded eggs and 
young, and may deposit them only under their care, this 
would be adding wonder to wonder, and instancing in a 
fresh manner that the methods of Providence are not 
subjected to any mode or rule, but astonish us in new 
lights, and in various and changeable appearances." 
He lived to read the famous monograph on the cuckoo 
published by Jenner in 1788, and alludes to it in a letter 
written to Marsham in 1791 2 as "very curious, new, and 
extraordinary." 
The most usual foster-parents in this county are pied- 
wagtails, hedge-sparrows, meadow-pipits and robins. Less 
frequent are sedge-warblers, reed-warblers, blackcaps, 
garden-warblers, whitethroats, lesser whitethroats, willow- 
warblers, chiffchaffs, yellow-hammers, reed-buntings, cirl 
buntings, wrens, spotted flycatchers, chaffinches, green- 
finches, bullfinches, linnets, wood-larks, tree-pipits, and 
' Letter iv. to Barrington. Selborne. February 19th, 1770. 
^ Letter ii. to Marsham. Selborne. January i8th, 1791. 
