128 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
or Peru, it would never have merited our belief. But yet, should 
it further appear that this simple bird, when divested of that 
natural cropyj) that seems to raise the kind in general above 
themselves, 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. 
What was said by a very ancient and sublime writer concern- 
ing the defect of natural affection in the ostrich, may be well 
applied to the bird we are talking of: — 
She is hardened against her young ones, as though they were 
not hers : 
"Because God hath deprived her of wisdom, neither hath he 
imparted to her understanding.'^* 
Query. Does each female cuckoo lay but one egg in a season, 
or does she drop several in different nests according as opportu- 
nity offers ?t 
I am, &c. 
LETTER V. To the Hon. DAINES BARRINGTON. 
DEAR SIR, Selborne, April 12, 1770. 
I heard many birds of several species sing last year after Mid- 
summer ; enough to prove that the summer solstice is not the 
period that puts a stop to the music of the woods. The yellow- 
hammer no doubt persists with more steadiness than any other ; 
but the woodlarS:, the wren, the redbreast, the swallow, the 
white-throat, the goldfinch, the common linnet, are all undoubted 
instances of the truth of what I advanced. 
* Job xxxix. 16, 17. 
t Strangely enough this question has never been very satisfactorily determined, although it 
might easily be done by dissecting a sufficient number of females during the spring and summer 
months. On two or three females, dissected by Col. Montagu at the time they first began to lay, 
only four or five eggs that could be laid successively could be discovered ; but he had reason to 
believe a second lot of eggs in progress. A young cuckoo of the preceding year, which I examined 
on the twenty-second of May, contained in the ovary three largely-developed, eggs, which would 
have been laid perhaps on the three following days ; there were a multitude of smaller ones, some 
of them enlarged to the size of a mustard-seed, but these presenting no vascular appearance 
»ould not probably have been laid that same season. — Ed. 
