CUCKOO. 
127 
not find that any cuckoo had ever been seen in these parts, ex- 
cept in the nest of the wagtail, the hedge-sparrow, the titlark, the 
white-throat, and the red-breast, all soft-billed insectivorous birds. 
The excellent Mr. Willughby mentions the nests of the palumbus 
(ring-dove), and of the fringilla (chaffinch), birds that subsist on 
acorns and grains, and such hard food : but then he does not 
mention them as of his own knowledge ; but says afterwards that 
he saw himself a wagtail feeding a cuckoo. It appears hardly 
possible that a soft-billed bird should subsist on the same food 
with the hard-billed : for the former have thin membranaceous 
stomachs suited to their soft food ; while the latter, the granivo- 
rous tribe, have strong muscular gizzards, which, like mills, 
grind, by the help *of small gravels and pebbles, what is swal- 
lowed.* This proceeding of the cuckoo, of dropping its eggs as it 
were by chance, is such a monstrous outrage on maternal affec- 
tion, one of the first great dictates of nature ; and such a violence 
on instinct ; that, had it only been related of a bird in the Brazils, 
* Having paid very particular attention to the economy of this interesting species, and taken 
much pains to investigate its peculiarities, 1 am enabled to state decidedly that the egg is not 
invariably deposited in the nests of insectivorous birds, but occasionally in those of species which 
are exclusively granivorous. I have ascertained, either from direct observation, or from the testi- 
mony of respectable eye-witnesses, the fact of its occurring in the nests of the following numerous 
species, namely, the blackbird, song-thrush, skylark, green grosbeak, chaffinch, hedge-dunnock, 
different pipits and wagtails, yellow and reed-bunting, and sedge-reedling ; and there are instances 
recorded of its having been found also in those of the red-backed shrike, linnet, fen-reedling, 
song pettychaps and locustelle. The most remarkable, however, of all these are undoubtedly the 
linnet and green grosbeak, which (like the canary) rear their own young exclusively upon mace- 
rated vegetable diet ejected from their own craws, all the other species (including the chaffinch), 
subsisting partly, and bringing up their offspring wholly, upon insects. That birds should thus 
instinctively know what diet the young cuckoo requires, when difl'erent from that they would 
have given their own offspring, is indeed a most extraordinary fact ; but the following highly in- 
teresting anecdote, related in the Field Naturalist's Magazine, for January, 1834, sufficiently 
proves that it is actually the case : — " A cuckoo," observes the writer, " was found, just feathered, 
in the nest of a hedge-dunnock. It was immediately taken from thence and placed in a cage 
containing a hen canary. The birds agreed perfectly well; but, what is most singular, when the 
proper food of the cuckoo (young caterpillars, &c.), was placed in the cage, the canary fed its 
young charge with that, although she herself kept to the hempseed, &c., to which she had been 
accustomed." The cuckoo is by no means a rare species, and each female bird would seem to lay 
annually at least six or eight eggs, yet neither the eggs nor young ar^ ever found in any sort of 
proportion to the number of old birds. The cause of this appears to be that the cuckoo's egg is 
almost invariably, excepting in two or three particular species, ejected by the rightful owners of 
the nest in which it has been deposited. I have at least found this to be the case repeatedly, in 
experiments that I have tried with larks' eggs, which somewhat resemble those of the cuckoo. I 
have many times placed one of these along with other eggs, have removed the latter and placed it 
alone in the nest, and have put them singly into newly finished nests, before any other eggs had 
been deposited in them, but have continually met with the same result, the surreptitious eggs having 
been turned out by the rightful owners. This, therefore, must be undoubtedly the main cause 
of the extreme scarcity of the cuckoo's egg. In at least five instances out of six it is found 
either in the pied-wagtaiPs nest, or in that of the common or the shore-pipit, and somewhat less 
frequently in that of the hedge-dunnock, which latter species, I know, will sometimes eject an 
alien egg from its nest. To return to the text, it may be observed that all our small insectivorous 
birds have the stomach far more muscular than would be supposed from Mr. White's remark 
on the subject. — Ed. 
