natural Hiflory of the Cuckoo. 231 
this peculiar incident performing the part of a fitting- 
bird *. 
Having under my infpedtion, in another Hedge-fparrow’s 
neft, a young Cuckoo, about the fame fze as the former, I 
procured two Wagtail’s eggs which had been fat upon a few 
days, and had them immediately conveyed to the fpot, and 
placed under the Cuckoo. hi the ninth day after the eggs 
had been in tins filiation, the perfon appointed to fuperintend 
the neft (as it was fome distance from the place of my resi- 
dence) came to inform me, that the Wagtails were hatched. 
On going to the place, and examining the neft, 1 found 
nothing in it but the Cuckoo and the (hells of the Wagtail’s 
eggs. The fa£t, therefore, of the birds being hatched, I do 
not give you as coming immediately under my own eye ; but 
the teftimony of the perfon appointed to watch the neft was 
corroborated by that of another witnefs. 
To what caufe then may we attribute the Singularities of 
the Cuckoo ? May they not be owing to the following circum- 
fiances ? The fort refidence this bird is allowed to make in the 
country whtrc it is icjlined to propagate its fpecies , and the call 
that nature has upon it , during that fort refidence , to produce a 
numerous progeny. The Cuckoo’s f rft appearance here is about 
the middle of April, commonly on the 17th. Its egg is not 
ready for incubation till fome weeks after its arrival, feldom 
before the middle of May. A fortnight is taken up by 
the Sitting bird in hatching the egg. The young bird gene- 
rally continues three weeks in the neft before it flies, and the 
* At this tune I was unacquainted with the fact, that the young Cuckoo 
turned out the eggs of the Hedge-fp arrow ; but it is reafonable to conclude, 
that it had loft the difpofition for doing this when thefe eggs were depoftted in 
the neft. 
fofter- - 
