LIFE AND BEHAVIOR OF THE CUCKOO 
171 
found to open up this apparent mystery, or at least to cast a ray 
of light upon it, and happily he has not been disappointed. 
Darwin,2 who has fully discussed the specialized instincts of 
the Cuculus canoruSjin the first place accepted the view then often 
expressed, that the cuckoo did not brood, because she laid her 
eggs not daily, as in the case of most birds, but at intervals of two 
or three days, a condition which it was thought would extend the 
breeding season to undue length. 
Since, however, the American cuckoos were found to be in this 
very predicament, and yet built their own nests and reared their 
own young, Darwin was evidently constrained to go a step further 
and conclude that these birds were passing by the same road of 
natural selection long ago traversed by the ancestors of their 
European relatives, and that they were now headed for the same 
goal which the latter had long ago reached. In fine, he believed 
that our American species were losing their nesting instincts, and 
that they had already taken the same retrograde steps towards 
that kind of parasitism which their European relative had so suc- 
cessfully adopted. 
So far as we are aware no detailed study of the instincts and 
general behavior of the American cuckoos in the young and adult 
state has been previously made, and it is safe to say that had Dar- 
win been in possession of the pertinent facts in their history, he 
would have reached a different conclusion in regard to their des- 
tiny from that which he has presented in his famous chapter on In- 
stinct in the ' 'Origin of Species." Laboring under this influence or 
that of writers who have misinterpreted certain well known facts 
in the life history of our birds, Baldamus has even classified the 
American cuckoos with the non-brooders, in which might be 
included with equal show of justice such types of exemplary par- 
ental conduct as the pigeons or even the domestic fowls. As the 
following narrative will show, the true answer to the question of 
brooding or non-brooding is to be mainly sought in the analysis 
and comparison of the cyclical or reproductive instincts of this 
and other species of birds. 
2 Darwin, Charles. Origin of species. Vol. 1. chap. 8, p. 330, New York, 
1896. 
