126 NATURAL HISTORY 
wards that he faw himfelf a tvagtail feeding a cuckoo. It ap- 
pears hardly poffible that a foft-billed bird fliould fubrift on the 
fame food with the hard-billed : for the former have thin mem- 
branaceous ftomachs fuited to their foft food ; while the latter, the 
granivorous tribe, have ftrong mufcular gizzards, which, like mills, 
grind, by the help of fmall gravels and pebbles, what is fwallowed. 
This proceeding of the cuckoo, of dropping it's eggs as it were by 
chance, is fuch a monftrous outrage on maternal affeclion, one of 
the firil great dictates of nature ; and fuch a violence on inftinft ; 
that, had it only been related of a bird in the Braftls, or Peru, it 
would never have merited our belief. But yet, fhould it farther 
appear that this fimple bird, when divefted of that natural |;ro^yY^ 
that Icems to raife the kind in general above themfelves, and infpire 
them with extraordinary degrees of cunning and addrefs, may be 
ftill endued with a more enlarged faculty of difcerning what fpecies 
are fuitable and congenerous nurfing- mothers for it's difregarded 
eggs and young, and may depofit them only under their care, 
this would be adding wonder to wonder, and inftancing, in a frefli 
manner, that the methods of Providence are not fubjefted to any 
mode or rule, but aftonilh us in new lights, and in various and 
changeable appearances. 
What was faid by a very ancient and fublime writer concerning 
the defetfl of natural afFeftion in the oftrich, may be well applied 
to the bird we are talking of : 
She is hardemi againj} her young ones, as though they were not 
*' ha's: 
Becdufe God hath deprived her of wifdom, neither hath he imparted 
to her tittderJlanding^J" 
* Job xxxix. 16, 17. 
^,ery. 
