76 
NATURE NOTES 
the bird was a cock, having the male head and tail. He showed the bird on the 
nest to the agent, the former agent, the head keeper, his own son, and others ; 
and they none of them could make it out. B. is quite a reliable man, and has 
been accustomed to pheasants all his life. He cannot account for it in any way, 
nor can I.” 
It may be suggested, as a solution of this unusual occurrence, that the bird 
was not a cock after all, but merely an old hen which had assumed male plumage 
and had taken to crowing. But these ancient females are barren, and are death 
on eggs and young birds, which they seem to delight in destroying. 
Edmund Thomas Daubeny. 
“A Cuckoo Myth.” — On page i8 you print the letters of two esteemed 
correspondents, replying to some previous remarks of mine in which I ventured 
to deny the accuracy of the story told by Dr. Jenner as to the “ peculiar habit of 
the young cuckoo in ejecting his foster-brothers” — and sisters, I suppose I should 
say, if I wish to avoid calling down the wrath of your scientific readers and of Mr. 
James Hiam. Why should the direct evidence of Mr. James Partridge be 
ignored ? asks Mr. J. L. Otter, of Brighton. Why, indeed 1 If his story is 
similar to the one which Jenner accepted the parentage of, as repeated by Mr. 
Hiam and others, then the reason why it should not be believed is because it is 
not true. Mr. Ottel: innocently quotes an extract from “ The Origin of Species.” 
I have seen that quotation elsewhere. I have not taken part in this particular 
dispute so frequently as I have done during the last ten years without picking 
up a few facts and seeing many a bold lie mercilessly laid bare ; but lies arc 
wriggling things, so that it is not a little difficult to fix them firmly to the 
proverbial counter. And the bigger the lie is the worse the job, even supposing 
you have caught up to it. “A little observation is better than a great deal of 
theory,” remarks Mr. Otter. But who said “theory”? And as to Darwin, 
certainly, in this instance, he is the theoriser. If he had observed more and 
taken less on credit from others he would not have made quite as many 
mistakes as he did. Darwin did not go direct to Nature for all his facts. 
Darwin accepts the story of the newly-hatched cuckoo, together with the Atlas- 
like conformation of his back, on the authority of Mr. Gould, the bird-painter. 
“ Mr. Gould,” says the great biologist, “ was formerly inclined to believe that the 
act of ejection was performed by the foster-parents themselves. But he has now 
received a trustworthy account of a young cuckoo which was actually seen, while 
still blind and not able even to hold up its head, in the act of ejecting its foster- 
brothers.” -Mr. Gould adopted this “ trustworthy account ” from a lady artist, 
introduced it in his “ Birds of Great Britain,” and, by the aid of a few fancy 
touches of his own, gave it pictorial representation ; the result being that the lady, 
whose artistic powers were already sufficiently vivid, repudiated all responsibility 
for the details. 
Joseph Colunson. 
I observe in the December number of Nature Notes, an article headed, 
“ A Cuckoo Myth,” and would like to refer the writer to “ Ceylon Birds,” by 
Colonel Legge (now Commandant of Volunteers in Tasmania), page 225, where 
he will find a corroboration of Dr. Jenner’s facts by an eye-witness, Mrs. Hugh 
Blackburn, who published what she saw in Nature, No. 124. This is copied in 
“ Ceylon Birds ” with a facsimile of her sketch. “ When doctors differ,” &c. 
Coomooboolaroo, (Mrs.) Geo. Barnard. 
Jantiary 24, 1899. 
Bud-destroying Birds. — I was glad to see in Nature Notes for March, 
the remarks on the mischief done by bullfinches. In one’s zeal to preserve the 
life of birds it is a mistake to overlook the delinquencies of some of them. Bull- 
finches spend most of their lives, at all events during the spring, in devouring the 
sound buds of trees and shrubs. No doubt other finches are not quite immaculate, 
but even the sparrow, which does considerable damage to the buds on our fruit 
trees, has his good points, for he is a great rlevourer of cockchafers and such like 
beetles, that are so injurious to the farmers’ crops. Tom-tits are often put on the 
black list of bud-destroyers. I have watched their supposed wrongdoings in this 
matter, and acquit them of actual harm. Tits are great insect-eaters, though they 
