CUCKOO. 
443 
ly hatched birds, its back from the scapulae down- 
wards is very broad, with a considerable depression 
in the middle. This depression seems formed by 
nature for the design of giving a more secure lodge- 
ment to the egg of the hedge-sparrow, or its young 
one, when the young cuckoo is employed in re- 
moving either of them from the nest. When it is 
about twelve days old this cavity is quite filled up, 
and then the back assumes the shape of nestling 
birds in general. 
“ It sometimes happens that two cuckoo’s eggs 
are deposited in the same nest, and then the young 
produced from one of them must inevitably perish. 
Two cuckoos and one hedge-sparrow were hatched 
in the same nest, and one hedge-sparrow’s egg re- 
' mained unhatched. In a few hours after, a contest 
began between the cuckoos for the possession of the 
nest, which continued undetermined till the next 
afternoon, when one of them, which was somewhat 
superior in size, turned out the other, together with 
the young hedge-sparrow and the unhatched egg. 
The combatants alternately appeared to have the 
advantage, as each carried the other several times 
to the top of the nest, and then sunk down again, 
oppressed by the weight of the burthen, till at 
length, pfter various efforts, the strongest prevailed, 
and was afterwards brought up by the hedge-spar- 
row.” 
It appears a remarkable deviation in the general 
law of nature, for the cuckoo to deposit her eggs in 
the nest of another bird ; and the singularity is in- 
