cow BUNTING. 
181 
terials and allow them time to dry. In this state it is sometimes 
met with, and laid in by the Cow Bunting; the result of which 
I have invariably found to be the desertion of the nest by its 
rightful owner, and the consequent loss of the egg thus dropped 
in it by the intruder. But when the owner herself has begun to 
lay, and there are one or more eggs in the nest before the Cow 
Bunting deposits hers, the attachment of the proprietor is se- 
cured, and remains unshaken until incubation is fully perform- 
ed, and the little stranger is able to provide for itself. 
The well known practice of the young Cuckoo of Europe in 
turning out all the eggs and young which it feels around it, al- 
most as soon as it is hatched, has been detailed in a very sa- 
tisfactory and amusing manner, by the amiable Dr. Jenner,* 
who has since risen to immortal celebrity, in a much nobler 
pursuit; and to whose genius and humanity the whole human 
race are under everlasting obligations. In our Cow Bunting, 
though no such habit has been observed, yet still there is some- 
thing mysterious in the disappearance of the nurse’s own eggs 
soon after the foundling is hatched, which happens regularly 
before all the rest. From twelve to fourteen days is the usual 
time of incubation with our small birds; but although I cannot 
exactly fix the precise period requisite for the egg of the Cow 
Bunting, I think I can say almost positively, that it is a day or 
two less than the shortest of the above mentioned spaces! In 
this singular circumstance we see a striking provision of the 
Deity; for did this egg require a day or two more instead of so 
much less than those among which it has been dropped, the 
young it contained would in every instance mOvSt inevitably 
perish; and thus in a few years the whole species must become 
extinct. On the first appearance of the young Cow Bunting, the 
parent being frequently obliged to leave the nest to provide 
sustenance for the foundling, the business of incubation is thus 
necessarily interrupted; the disposition to continue it abates; na- 
ture has now given a new direction to the zeal of the parent, 
and the remaining eggs, within a day or two at most, generally 
* See Philosophical Transactions for 1788, Part II. 
