78 
THE CUCKOO. 
the day; towards night, however, it became more 
restless and fidgetty, fluttering about and flying up 
and down the cage. After this, not being able to 
escape, it recovered its spirits, and was alive and in 
good health in October, 1832, when the narrative 
reached us, though it probably died in the course of 
the winter, the usual fate of numbers which have been 
kept in a state of confinement. We do not indeed 
recollect a single well-authenticated instance of one 
of these birds living for a year, when kept in confine- 
ment, which is the more surprising, as their usual 
insect-food might he generally procured. 
To naturalists various other peculiarities in the 
Cuckoo are well known, hut in closing our account, 
we would refer to two, more particularly worthy of 
notice, as instances of the wonderful manner in 
which its wants are assisted by nature. The 
Cuckoo, as we have said, lays its egg in the nest 
of a small bird; of course, if this egg were large in 
proportion to the size of the parent bird, it would 
be far too large for the little nest in which it was 
placed, and its unnatural size would moreover, 
in all probability, frighten the lesser foster-mother, 
and induce her to desert her own nest; but a 
Cuckoo's egg is remarkably small, and therefore can 
be laid, without exciting suspicion, in the midst of 
others of a naturally small size. In the next place, 
it is known that the young Cuckoo always contrives 
to make room for its increasing size, by throwing 
the other nestlings out of the nest ; but were it of 
the usual form with other birds, it would find great 
difficulty in accomplishing this. Nature, however, 
lends a helping-hand, and has given it a remarkable 
