OF SELBORNE. 
209 
parently fubfift on infeds and fruits : nor was there the leaft ap- 
pearance of bones, feathers, or fur, to fupport the idle notion of 
their being birds of prey. 
The fternum in this bird feemed to us to be remarkably fliort, 
between which and the anus lay the crop, or craw, and immediately 
behind that the bowels againft the back-bone. 
It muft be allowed, as this anatomift obferves, that the crop 
placed juft upon the bowels muft, efpecially when full, be in a 
very uneafy fituation during the bufinefs of incubation ; yet the 
teft will be to examine whether birds that are adually known to 
fit for certain are not formed in a fimilar manner. This inquiry 
I propofed to myfelf to make with a fern-ozvl, or goat-fucker, as 
foon as opportunity offered : becaufe, if their formation proves the 
fame, the reafon for incapacity in the cuckoo will be allowed to 
have been taken up fomewhat haftily. 
Not long after a fern-owl was procured, which, from it's habit 
and fhape, we fufpefted might refemble the cuckoo in it's internal 
conftruclion. Nor were our fufpicions ill-grounded; for, upon the 
diffedtion, the crop, or craw, alfo lay behind the fternum, immedi- 
ately on the vifcera, between them and the fkin of the belly. It was 
bulky, and ftuffed hard with large phalcena, moths of feveral forts, 
and their eggs, which no doubt had been forced out of thofeinieds 
by the aftion of fv/allowing. 
Now as it appears that this bird, which is fo Well knoivn ro 
praftife incubation, is formed in a fimilar manner with cuckoos, 
Monfieur /^m/7iz«/'s conjedure, that cuckoos are incapable of incu- 
bation from the difpofition of their inteftines, feems to fall to the 
ground ; and we are ftill at a lofs for the caufe of that ftrange and 
fingular peculiarity in the inftance of the cuculus canoms. 
Ee 
Wc 
