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OUR COMMON CUCKOO.

“ONISIN: ANOAAT OOMINI AQ MOVE NO DOA

OUR COMMON CUCKOO

AND OTHER CUCKOOS AND
PARASITICAL BIRDS

AN ATTEMPT TO REACH A TRUE THEORY OF THEM BY
COMPARATIVE STUDY OF HABIT AND FUNCTION

WITH A THOROUGH
CRITICISM AND EXPOSURE OF DARWIN'S VIEWS
AND ROMANES'S VIEWS
AND THOSE OF THEIR FOLLOWERS.

BY e

ALEXANDER H.\JAPP, LE.D., F.R.S.E.

AUTHOR OF ‘‘ HOURS IN MY GARDEN;”
‘THOREAU: HIS LIFE AND AIMS;”’ ‘‘' ANIMAL ANECDOTES
ARRANGED ON A NEW PRINCIPLE;"’ ‘ ANIMAL TRAITS;" ETC.

WITH VARIOUS ILLUSTRATIONS

London
THOMAS BURLEIGH
1899

BARNICOTT AND PEARCE
PRINTERS

PREFACE.

page the district round a little house in the

country, to which I removed from London,
now getting on to twenty years ago, abounds with
cuckoos, as well as with nightingales. I was thus
led to pay more attention than I had before done to
both these birds and to two others, to which I do not
here at all refer. I have lain half-days in woods and
coppices to watch and observe as best I could the
ways of the cuckoos, and in doing this I could not
help seeing other things ; and sometimes I have been
so struck with what I have seen that I became very
anxious to know in how far other observers had
witnessed the same or similar occurrences.

This led me on and on, in a wide track of reading
and inquiry, till I found myself launched on a piece
of big and rather difficult research about the various
different cuckoos in Europe and further afield, and
even about other parasitical birds. I was constantly
forced on attempts at comparative survey, and the
endeavour to form sufficing theories, based on rational
explanations of habit, or, at all events, working hy-

viil Preface.

potheses. Some of the results of these endeavours
are presented in this volume, which, if it has no other
value, may claim this: that it describes, as far as I
can, observations and enquiries undertaken with a
desire for knowledge only, and to satisfy niyself, and
with no notion of writing a book.

The question may well be asked: why, then, do
you write a book? My answer is that science is
surely aided by any demonstration of unity in type
or tendency where before only differences and varieties
were observed and distinguished. Since, I believe,
against some great authorities, that our common
cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) is far more intimately re-
lated to the two best-known American cuckoos and
to several others of India and elsewhere than has yet
been demonstrated, I crave for permission to put my
demonstration before those who may be presumed to
be interested in it, and to leave the matter with them.
I have scorned no pains to make it complete.

The reader will find as he proceeds that the single
species—our cuckoos—soon leads to questions of
larger interest — questions, indeed, of the highest
scientific interest, in which not only birds, but many
other species are more or less involved.

I have to thank Dr. Bowdler Sharpe and Mr.
Saunders at South Kensington for aid, and Mr. E.

Bidwell for much ready assistance; Dr. Richard

Preface. ix

Garnett, of the British Museum, and Mr. Waterhouse
and Mr. Trigg, of the Zoological Society, for such
service as I can but feebly thank them for: by their
readiness to oblige, I was able to consult several
things which I had failed to find either at the British
Museum or at South Kensington. I must record
also my gratitude to Dr. A. Russel Wallace and
Canon Tristram for answers to letters, and I must
not omit to add Professor H. O. Forbes and my old
friend and correspondent, Mrs. Bishop (Isabella L.
Bird) for friendly replies—both full and ready—about
cuckoos in the Far East, etc.

The work of Mr. John Craig and Mr. J. Peat
Millar, of Beith, in securing a series of photographs,
showing the young cuckoo in the most striking stages
of his work in turning out eggs and young birds,
could not but be most interesting to me as supplying
exactly what some sceptics, among them Dr. Charles
Creighton, in Vaccination and Fenner and elsewhere,
had repeatedly and triumphantly demanded. I have
in my hands copies of the whole series; and I will
here give notes as sent to me in explanation of them
by Mr. Peat Millar:

No. 1, shows attitude taken by the young cuckoo when the
other young bird was put into the nest by Mr, Craig.
No. 2 was taken five seconds later, and shows the young bird

fairly on its back, and the cuckoo beginning to rise.

x Preface.

No. 3, shows the young bird still on the cuckoo’s back—the
cuckoo well up in the nest; taken five or six seconds after No. 2.

No. 4, shows the cuckoo right at top of the nest—the other
young bird at first slipping off its back. You will in this one
notice that the cuckoo has its wings extended, to keep the bird
on its back from rolling back into the nest.

(Nos. 3 and 4 were reproduced in The Feathered World, and
are now, by the kind consent of all the parties concerned— Mrs.
Comyns-Lewer, Mr. Craig, and Mr. J. Peat-Millar—here printed
at p. 28.]

No. 5, shows the young cuckoo settling down in the nest, after
having finished his murderous work.

[I am sorry to say, adds Mr. Miller, that the young bird in
No. 5 is rather indistinct, owing to the fact that, when it was
thrown out of the nest, it was out of the actual focus of the
lens.]

No. 6, taken at a different time, shows the young cuckoo with
the egg in the hollow of the back.

No. 7 is a snapshot of the cuckoo, after having reached the
age of ten or eleven days, living in perfect harmony with an-
other young bird, which Mr. Craig had put there with the view
of trying the experiment. They had apparently found the nest
too small for them, and they were lying snugly ensconced close
together in the soft grass at the side of the nest. In that posi-
tion this photograph was taken.

[This goes further to prove that the young cuckoo, in about
eight or nine days, at furthest, loses completely the impulse to
throw out what is beside it.]

[No. 6 is given as the frontispiece to this volume, and No. 7
at p. 45, with many thanks to Mr. Craig and Mr. Peat-Millar,
for freely and cordially giving me permission to use them.]

Preface. xi

My book was finished and partly printed before
the news of this achievement reached me; but I
have made room for the leading facts which settle so
much that was in dispute before, and some passages
which might have disappeared or been remodelled
had J had these facts sooner before me, are so far
explained in the light of this statement.

These photographs—the whole series or any one
of them—may be procured from Mr. J. Peat-Millar,
Braehead, Beith, Scotland, at a moderate price, and
doubtless there are many ornithologists and students
of natural history who would be glad to procure
them.

Since this book was printed, Mr. Dewar has fur-
nished us with another testimony to ejection of young
by the cuckoo-nestling :

“A friend tells me that he saw a young cuckoo,
after much exertion, turn out some young hedge-
sparrows. When he replaced one of the birds in the
nest, it was again ejected by the cuckoo.” *

I have also heartily to thank Mr. J. H. Gurney for
the use of two illustrations, and for other aid readily

given.

ALEXANDER H. JAPP.

* Wild Life in Hampshire Highlands, p. 88.

CONTENTS.

STRANGE Points 1n Lire History
oF Cuculus canorus: OUR COMMON

Cuckoo . ‘ : ;

FuRTHER STRANGE TRAITS AND

Some DeriniTe Resu.Lts .

Mr. Darwin anD Mr. RoMANES

DEALT WITH . . .

EvIDENCE FROM ALL ParTSs OF THE

WorRLD . ? ;

STRANGE FactTs ABOUT CALLS AND

YounGc Birps oF Cuculus canorus

Books Reap oR CONSULTED . : j

PAGE

81

IOI

199

255

213

281

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE
YounG Cuckoo witH EGG PLacep on
Back Reapy To RiszE-. . frontispiece
Initi1aL—Cuculus canorus.
RepropuctTion oF Mrs. Brackpurn’s Draw-
ING OF YOUNG Cuckoo THROWING OUT
YounGc NESTLINGS : . : 13
From Mr. J. Peat-MILLar’s PHOTOGRAPH OF
YounG Cuckoo 1n First StaGE oF RISING
WITH YouUNG MEADOW-PIPIT ON Back ‘ 28
Ditto, Ditro, Five SEconps AFTERWARDS, 28 ,
Younc Cuckoo Lyinc AMICABLY WITH OTHER
Younc Birp ‘ : ‘ . 45
TAILPIECE—OTHER VIEW OF Cuculus canorus 77
/
Cuckxoos Destroyinc YouNnG Brirps, THAT
Oxtp Ones May BUILD AGAIN AND GIVE
CHANCE FOR THEIR Ecos . » 139
Younc Cuckoo In Meapow-pipit’s Nest . 183
WactTaiIL FEEDING YounG Cuckoo . - 3162 *
Tue YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO. F & [238
Cow-BirpDs oN Cows’ Backs AFTER INSECTS 237

THe AMERICAN Cow-BIRD : . 5

PART I.

STRANGE POINTS IN LIFE HISTORY OF
CUCULUS CANORUS:
OUR COMMON CUCKOO.

OUR COMMON CUCKOO
AND OTHER CUCKOOS,.

~S

it and idealized it. Wordsworth finely called it a
“wandering voice,” and Michael Bruce, whose beauti-
ful poem, like a cuckoo’s egg, was by Providence

BOUT no bird, which in

a sense is well known
and familiar, is there
more mystery than
about the Cuckoo.
Early poets, who were
impressed by two
things about it — its
arrival almost in the
fore-front of the great
army of migrants in the
opening of spring, and
its peculiar call (heard
almost everywhere
while yet the bird is
comparatively seldom
seen)—have celebrated

4 Life History of Common Cuckoo.

dropped into another bird’s nest—that is, found a
father in the Rev. John Logan, who appropriated it,
but only in the end to lose by his mean action—
named it ‘the messenger of spring.” Had these
poets known what later observation has revealed
about the cuckoo and its ways, they might have been
less effusive, though, perhaps, they would have had
their answer in justification ready. They would have
said that they had to do with the impressions made
on an imaginative mind by the cuckoo’s note, which
revelations of science, however adverse to the bird’s
character in certain respects, could never modify as
regards the possibility of poetic impression. A later
poet, who, it is to be presumed, knew all about the
cuckoo, yet wrote thus :—

The cuckoo from the wood I hear ;

He has no thought to fill my ear ;

And yet the sounds come sweet to me—
The note of bird in ecstasy.

Continuous, full, it floats and fills
The air with soft impassioned thrills,
And makes me think of days gone by,
When I had gracious company.

Goethe was much exercised by the knowledge of
the cuckoo’s habits in certain respects. We find
Eckermann and him thus speaking as reported in the
‘« Conversations ” :—

“We know,” said I, “that it does not brood itself,
but lays its egg in the nest of some other bird... ..
We also know that these are all insect-eating birds ;
and must be so, because the cuckoo itself is an insect-
eating bird, and its young cannot be brought up by

Insect-Eaters and Seed-Eaters. 5

a seed-eating bird. But how does the cuckoo find out
that these are all actually insect-eating birds? For
all differ extremely from each other, both in form and
colour, and also in their song, and their call-note.
Further, how comes it that the cuckoo can trust its
egg and its tender young to nests which are so
different with respect to structure, dryness, and
moisture? The nest of the wren is so dry and close,
that one would fancy the big young cuckoo would be
suffocated in it, yet it thrives there; it thrives, too,
in the nest of the yellow wagtail, which builds upon
damp commons in a nest of rushes.”

Eckermann was wrong about the cuckoo invariably
choosing the nests of insect-eating birds for its eggs—
it sometimes has recourse to nests of seed-eaters ; but
the young cuckoos adapt themselves, and flourish just
as well.

But in truth, the very word “ insect-eating,” as
implying a hard and fast distinction from which there
is no variation worth noting, is egregiously mislead-
ing. Not a few birds which pass amongst the crowd
as seed-eaters, such, say, as the Greenfinch, notori-
ously, in the time of feeding the young, resort largely
to insects and caterpillars; and I am even inclined to
think from facts which have come before me, and
which I have myself observed, that all birds more or
less in the time of feeding the young will largely and
most astonishingly vary and extend the list of edibles.
Canaries, more especially at that time, will devour
plant-lice and sometimes even try ants-eggs, which I
would not have credited had I not seen it; for, having
once had a nightingale and what is wrongly called a
‘‘ grass-finch,” I first got proof of this by chance,

6 Life History of Common Cuckoo.

owing wholly to the conditions in which I kept my
canaries and finches—free at certain times to fly
about the room, in one end of which I had my aviary.

This tendency of seed-eating birds to vary from
seed-eating, more especially at the time of feeding
young ones, would thus be all in favour of the young
cuckoos. If they rejected the seed diet, they would
come in for relief through the insects, for which the
foster parents would now be on the look-out; anda
question may well here arise whether these facts may
not have had their own influence in turning certain
seed-eaters more and more definitely into insect-eaters
during the period of feeding the young.

On the other hand, there are several birds, among
them the Blackcap and the Garden-warbler, which,
though set down in bird-books as insect-eaters, are
largely seed and berry-eaters too, and there can be no
doubt that blackcaps often remain in this country all
the winter, managing to ‘ makea do of it,” as London
working women say, by aid of elderberries, mountain-
ash berries, and other berries.

The crossbills are put down in some ornithological
handbooks as feeding entirely on fir seeds, but they
feed freely on aphides, small flies, and minute beetles,
and this more especially at the period of rearing the
young.*

Even linnets will turn insect-eaters at breeding
and other times. We read:

“In 1891 there was a plague of black diamond
moth caterpillars. Rooks, plovers, seagulls, starlings,
linnets, greenfinches, and yellowhammers all turned
to police duty and ate the grubs. Only the sparrows

* Zoologist, 1895, p. 228.

Linnets eat Insects. 7

held aloof, and among returns from all counties, from
Dover to Aberdeen, only three spoke in praise of the
sparrow.”

And this, though the Linnet by systematic ornith-
ologists is set down as the most persistent seed-eater
of all the finches. Mr. Howard Saunders says that
‘“‘the Linnet’s food consists of soft seeds, especially
those of an oily nature, such as the various species of
flax and hemp; grains of charlock, knot-grass, and
other weeds, are also largely consumed, while in
winter various kinds of berries and even oats are
devoured.” Dr. Bowdler Sharpe affirms that ‘the
Linnet is not known to feed its young on insects to
the same extent as most of the other finches.” +

When bringing up the young, the linnet in some
cases, at all events, has recourse very largely to small
insects.

The self-same process is working itself out in
America as in Great Britain. We might multiply
extracts here to prove it, but these will come with
more effect, falling in at their proper places. Here,
however, are the words of one of the most recent
authorities :

«« When we had forests and woodlands edged with
belts of shrubbery, swamps with masses of thickets,
when on the roadsides and along the fences trees
and bushes overgrown with vines and other climbing
plants grew in abundance, we had birds everywhere
and in plenty. They limited the increase of insects,
but now that the birds are gone, insects have no
enemies and can increase to unlimited numbers. All

* Spectator, May 13, 1899.
+ Handbook, p. 45.

8 Life History of Common Cuckoo.

sma]l birds are insect-eaters, and at certain seasons
of the year they feed on nothing else.” *

If it should be found that there is anything in the
suggestion above, it presents quite a new phase of
adaptation due to special circumstances.

Mr. Westley T. Page, F.Z.S., whose experience is
very large, writes generally thus:—‘‘ Though wax-
bills and finches will do well for a long time on seed
alone, they are the better in condition, and more bril-
liant in plumage for the soft food and an occasional
insect.” t

Waterton indeed seriously raises the question
whether severity of climate and the food question
have anything to do with migration, since he finds
that, ike most of the migrants, the wren, the hedge-
sparrow and the robin are insectivorous birds, and yet
can manage not only to subsist through the English
winter but to increase their numbers.

Of all birds the stomach and digestive organs of the
cuckoo would seem to render it most unsuited for seed-
eating; yet we are quite aware that White, of Sel-
borne, in his dissections, found among worms, flies
and caterpillars, many seeds in the stomach of the
cuckoo—seeds which, on our theory, would be taken
so far medicinally, perhaps, more than aught else, as
dogs and many carnivorous creatures eat grass, etc.,
with this view. But the wonderful adaptations of
nature in providing exceptional cases to all rules is
what to us forms the special attraction of natural
history study and observation.

Let us end this section as we almost began it, by

*#H. Nehrling, i, p. xxviii.
+ The Feathered World, 14th July, 1899, p. 42.

Nature not scrupulous. 9

quoting from Goethe’s “Conversations with Ecker-
mann,” in continuation of what was said above:

‘This is a mystery,” returned Goethe. ‘But tell
me how the cuckoo places its egg in the nest of the
wren with so small an opening.”

“The cuckoo lays it upon a dry spot,” returned I,
‘and takes it to the nest in her beak. I believe, too,
that she does this with the wren’s nest and with all
others. . . . Supposing that she lays five eggs, and
that all these are properly hatched and brought up
by affectionate foster-parents, we must still wonder
that Nature can resolve to sacrifice at least fifty of
the young of our best singing-birds for five young
cuckoos.”

“In such things, as well as in others,” returned
Goethe, ‘“‘ Nature does not appear to be very scrupu-
lous. She has a good fund of life to lavish, and she
does so now and then without much hesitation. But
how does it happen that so many young singing-birds
are lost for a single young cuckoo?”

“The first brood,” I replied, ‘‘is generally lost ;
for even if it should happen that the eggs of the
singing-bird are hatched at the same time with that
of the cuckoo, which is very probable, the parents
are so much delighted with the larger bird that they
think of and feed that alone, whilst their own young
are neglected and vanish from the nest. It is a long
time before it attains its full size and plumage, and
even after it has flown it requires to be fed; so that
the whole summer passes away and the foster-parents
do not think of a second brood.”

“This is very convincing—very remarkable,” said
Goethe.

10 Life History of Common Cuckoo.

But even Eckermann did not know some of the
blackest facts about the cuckoo and its ways. Every
new fact discovered, indeed, seems only to make him
blacker. He not only drops his eggs in other birds’
nests, but his young are specially armed with powers
to throw out of the nest the true children of the birds
under whose protection they have been placed, so
that they may have no competitors in demanding food
from the foster-parents, who devote themselves in a
truly wonderful manner to feeding and nurturing these
intruders and aliens.

Il.

DirFicuLtizs, however, begin at the very start in
the study of this strange bird-monster—our common
cuckoo, scientifically, Cuculus cavorus. For a long
time it was thought that when it had fixed upon the
nest it meant to drop its egg in, it watched a favour-
able opportunity and sat upon the nest till it had
deposited its burden. But it has been found that the
cuckoo drops its eggs into nests so small and so
formed that it is impossible the bird could have sat
upon the nest. Its egg has even been found in domed
nests. It chooses various nests, from those of the
Meadow-pipit, Hedge-sparrow, and Wagtail, up to
those of the Red-backed Shrike, the Bunting, taking
no end of nests between, including those of the Reed-
wren, the Redstart, the Icterine Warbler, and some-
times even using those, though that must be excep-
tional, of the House-sparrow, Jay, Thrush, and Wood-
pigeon. Almost every bird whose nest is the least
suitable is victimised.

Reason of Zygodactyle Feet. II

Lord Lilford says: ‘*1 once and only once met with
a cuckoo’s egg in a spotted fly-catcher’s nest.” *

These facts have forced naturalists to conclude that
the cuckoo does not Jay the egg in the nest at all, but
lays it on the ground and carries it in its beak, and so
deposits it in the nest chosen for it. This has now
been observed and verified by so many naturalists
that it cannot be doubted; and this fact disposes of
the fine theory of some distinguished speculators that
the zygodactyle feet—that is, feet with two toes
behind and two toes in front, as in the case of parrot
and wood-pecker—admirably enabled it to lift and
carry its eggs in its claws. The reason for the zygo-
dactyle feet must therefore be sought elsewhere.

Looking at Mrs. Blackburn’s drawing, it has sug-
gested itself to me that here we may have a reason
for the zygodactyle feet. A bird with but one smaller
shorter toe behind clearly could scarcely so fix its feet
beneath as to retain position leaning against the side
of the nest with its posteriors: it would slip away.
But with the two hind toes with claws well fixed the
thing would I think be possible. In the case of the
wood-peckers, which for the same reason need to fix
themselves in trees, the two hind toes would do much
to keep the bird from slipping down through the front
toes giving way. There is no such reason I have
ever heard of for such a formation in the habits of the
cuckoo; and any hint to account for their presence
may be suggestive, and lead others to bring their
minds to bear upon it. Any way, I have as yet
heard of no other necessity in the life-economy of the
bird or adequate explanation of it; and I shall be

* Birds of Northamptonshire, i, p. 79.

12 Life History of Common Cuckoo.

glad to hear what other ornithologists, anatomists,
and biologists have to say on that particular point.
The zygodactyle feet are very fully developed even in
the egg.

I discount the idea of one writer in ornithology that
this form of foot is favourable for letting the cuckoo
stoop freely to the ground in certain positions to pick
insects off low-lying leaves; because nature has
already advertised that another form of foot is at least
equally adapted to business of that kind, and with it
has supplied many birds which stoop low, and run,
hiding among grass and vegetation—notably, the
Corncrake and the Nightjar, which certainly does
stoop and run, and fly wondrously fleet, as well as
others.

The writer of the article ‘‘ Cuckoo ”’ in the Encyclo-
pedia Britannica, Professor Alfred Newton, to wit,
who is exceedingly cautious, and who wrote before
some of the most valuable and best authenticated
facts about the bird were published, is compelled to
accept this as proved, citing these two cases :—-

“The most satisfactory evidence on the point is that
of Herr Adolf Miller, a forester of Gladenbach, in
Darmstadt, who says (Zoolog. Garten, 1866, pp. 374-
375) that through a telescope he watched a cuckoo as
she laid her egg on a bank, and then conveyed the
egg in her bill to a wagtail’s nest. Herr Braune, a
forester at Griez, in the Principality of Reuss, shot a
hen cuckoo as she was leaving the nest of an icterine
warbler. In the oviduct of this cuckoo he found an
egg coloured very lke that o* the warbler; and on
looking into the nest he fo. 1 there an exactly
similar egg, which there can b 9 reasonable doubt

CUCKOO EJECTING YOUNG BIRD FROM NEST (T).

CUCKOO BIECTING YOUNG BERD PROM NEST (2).

Merciless Ejection. 13

had just been laid there by the cuckoo. Moreover,
Herr Grunack (fournal frir Orn., 1873, p. 454) has
since found one of the most abnormally-coloured
specimens, quite unlike the ordinary egg of the cuckoo,
to contain an embryo so fully formed as to show the
characteristic zygodactylic feet of the bird, thus
proving unquestionably its parentage.”

The fact that the young cuckoo mercilessly ejects
from the nest and makes an end of his foster-brothers
is now just as well established as that the parent
drops the eggs into other birds’ nests. Soon after
being hatched, the young cuckoo exhibits great rest-
lessness, irritability, and energy. \Vhatever is in the
nest it endeavours to get under. It keeps on beating
its stumps of wings, and as it gets older will spar with
its wings and peck at the finger, if placed near it.
The other nestlings are usually disposed of by it
during the second or third day, and any eggs share
the same fate as the young birds. It will permit
nothing in the nest beside it—whatever is dropped in,
it will lift up and throw over the edge. Difficulties
have been raised about the possibility of the young
cuckoo throwing the other nestlings out of domed
nests ; but these are much reduced, if not met, by the
fact that in open nests, set in certain positions, the
area on the edge of the nests which the young cuckoo
could make available is but one-fifth of the whole
circumference, and that it has a special instinct for
working always toward the open portion ; besides all
which the birds in the domed nests it favours would
generally be very small birds. Later observations
prove that in addition to great strength of shoulder
and wing stump, the young cuckoo is aided by a

14 Life History of Common Cuckoo.

curious depression in the back behind the shoulders,
which disappears as the bird grows older. Its back,
in fact, forms nothing short of a kind of shovel, with
which to lift handily whatever it succeeds in once
getting under. Mr. J. H. Gurney well points out
that its stumps of wings are like arms with ill-formed
hands, which they really are. All this has of late
years been repeatedly observed, and this not by
solitary observers, but by whole parties.

Mrs. Blackburn (the well-known bird observer
and artist) and her friends, had peculiarly favour-
able opportunities of observing the process by
which the young cuckoo threw the true birds
out of the nest. A cuckoo had intruded an egg
into the nest of a meadow-pipit which was at the
foot of a low shrub on a gentle slope of turf.
The nest so rested on the turf amid shrubs that
only one side of the nest was really open for
anything to be ejected. Mrs. Blackburn’s attention
was first called to the circumstance by seeing
young birds struggling on the sloping turf. Thinking
that they had been thrown out of the nest by some
accident, she went, took them up, and put them back
in the nest. ‘hey were speedily thrown out again.
At last she contrived a means by which she could see
into the nest. The young cuckoo edged about in the
nest until he got his shoulder and wing under the
poor nestling, then edged up and up, standing upon
his sprawling long legs, his feet fixed in the sides of
the nest material until he was high enough, then he
elevated the shoulder furthest from the edge of the
nest, making, with the most wondrous, unerring pre-
cision, always to the open side of the nest, and then

Mrs. Blackburn's Drawing. 15

with a hitch threw the poor thing out. Further
observations made by this lady went anew to prove
that the growth of the upper bone of the wing in the
young cuckoo is exceptionally quick, and that this
part is exceptionally strong—simply, as it would
seem, to arm it with full resource for this instinct of
deadly self-preservation which it possesses. Mr. J.
E. Harting in Our Summer Migrants reproduced Mrs.
Blackburn’s drawing of the young cuckoo throwing
out the pipits.

ae

\)

Mrs. Blackburn adds that the young cuckoo was
‘perfectly naked, without the vestige of a feather,
or even a hint of future feathers; its eyes were not

16 Life History of Common Cuckoo.

yet opened, and its neck seemed too weak to support
the weight of its head. . . . The most singular thing
of all was the direct purpose with which the blind
little monster made for the open side of the nest, the
only part where it could throw its burden down the
bank. 1 think all the spectators felt the sort of
horror and awe at the apparent inadequacy of the
creature’s intelligence to its acts that one might have
felt at seeing a toothless hag raise a ghost by an in-
cantation. It was horribly uncanny and gruesome!”

Dr. Charles Creighton, in his Vaccination and
Jenner and elsewhere, has dealt with statements
about the cuckoo’s habits, and the peculiar points
of structure in the young cuckoo, in a spirit of
thorough scepticism to say the least. Here is one
passage :

“The young cuckoo’s back, it seems, is especially
designed for the lodgment and ejectment of eggs and
young birds, for, different from other newly-hatched
birds, its back from the scapula downwards is very
broad, with a considerable depression in the middle.
This depression seems formed by nature for the de-
sign of giving a more secure lodgment to the egg of
the hedge-sparrow or its young one when the young
cuckoo is employed in removing 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 nesting birds in general. This unique
and marvellous structural change, it need hardly be
said, has no existence; nor did Jenner seek to estab-
lish this assertion in the only way in which it could
be established, by a series of dissections. Moreover,
he himself inadvertently supplies the key to the illu-

Wonderful Structural Adaptation. 17

sion and the fanciful anatomy by his remark on the
previous page of his wondrous tale of ejectment, that
the young cuckoo ‘ makes a lodgment for the burden
by elevating its elbows.’ ” *

Now, did Dr. Charles Creighton himself make the
series of dissections here desiderated, and is he, on
the ground of that, ready to say that Montagu,
Yarrell and Bishop Stanley, Mrs. Blackburn and her
circle, Mr. John Hancock and his friends, and Mr.
R. Kearton, are not only unworthy of credence for
solemnly-given evidence, some of which will be im-
mediately presented, but that, in short, they are all
conscious and determined liars? An answer will
oblige.

Other instances of wonderful structural adaptation
in young birds, certainly not more essential to their
preservation than is this in the young cuckoo, on the
theory of its often itself getting rid of the legitimate
birds, are to be found in many cases, and some of
them shall be cited at once.

The late Mr. John Hancock, a well-known North-
umbrian ornithologist, reported observations almost
entirely to the same effect as those of Mrs. Blackburn.
In this case the nest was that of an accentor or hedge-
sparrow.

He wrote :—“ It is quite certain that the young are
ejected very soon after they are hatched; of this I
have conclusive proof. On the 6th June, 1864, I
observed a nest of the Hedge-Accentor, which con-

*Mr. Howard Saunders says that this cavity on its back fills
up after the twelfth day. Manual of Birds, p. 278. Does Mr.
Saunders here speak from observation and experience and dis-
section, or does he merely repeat the dogma of Jenner ?

18 Life History of Common Cuckoo.

tained five eggs, four belonging to this bird and one
to the cuckoo. I visited the nest again on the 8th
June, and found three young hedge - accentors and
the cuckoo hatched, one of the hedge-accentor’s eggs
having disappeared; the three young hedge-accen-
tors lay on one side of the nest, the cuckoo on the
other by itself. On the morning of the following day
I once more went to the nest; the three accentors
were gone, and the cuckoo was the sole occupant.
One of the accentors lay dead on the ground below
the nest. On the 1oth June I saw the foster parents
feeding the cuckoo.

“When the egg of the cuckoo is not hatched, the
young of the foster birds are reared. In 1870, I met
with a case in point; the nest contained two eggs of
the hedge-accentor and one of the cuckoo; after a
day or two the accentors were hatched. I continued
to watch for several days, in the hope that the
cuckoo’s egg would be hatched, but it proved to be
addled. The parents fed their little brood with great
attention and neither they nor the young took any
notice of the unhatched egg, which lay sometimes
above, and sometimes below the nestlings.”’*

Fourteen years later Mr. Hancock described obser-
vations corresponding exactly to those of Mrs.
Blackburn.

He tells that he had often tried to find opportunities
of observing this marvellous performance.

“T began in June, 1884, at Oatlands, Surrey,” he
writes, “to search the grounds carefully for as many
nests as I could find that were likely to have cuckoos’
eggs in them, and was fortunate enough to discover

* Catalogue of the Birds of Northumberland, pp. 26, 27.

At Oatlands. 19

one in a spot convenient for making continued obser-
vations on the 17th of June. ‘The cuckoo’s egg was
in the nest of a hedge-accentor, containing four of
its own eggs, and built in a bramble-bush near the
bottom of the sloping terrace at Oatlands. I tried
the cuckoo’s egg and one of the hedge-accentor’s in
water to ascertain if they were fresh or setting. The
former floated, denoting that it was setting ; the latter
sinking to the botton was, of course, fresh.

‘‘On the 25th of June I examined the nest. No
change had taken place. There were still the one
cuckoo’s egg in the nest and the four accentors.

‘‘On Friday, the 27th June, I looked at the nest at
three o'clock in the afternoon and the cuckoo’s egg
was hatched and one of the accentors. At twenty-
five minutes to six o’clock I looked at the nest again,
and another accentor’s egg was hatched.

“On Saturday morning, 28th June, I rose early
and went to the nest at twenty minutes to four
o’clock a.m. All was quiet and the old bird on the
nest. At two minutes past five o’clock I saw into the
nest. There were just as before the young cuckoo,
the two young accentors, and the two eggs. A few
minutes after five o’clock the young cuckoo attempted
to put an egg out of the nest by getting it on its back
in the most clumsy manner, but it did not succeed in
getting the egg high enough to roll it over the edge
of the nest. Immediately after this proceeding the
old hedge-accentor came on to the edge of the nest
and stooped down with its head into the nest and
took some white matter into its mouth (I think ex-
crement from the young birds) and swallowed it.
[No doubt whatever it was this; for my canaries and

20 Life History of Common Cuckoo.

other caged birds made it a strict point of duty after
feeding the young in the earlier stages to wait and
see if they needed to do such service as this, and a
wonderful accommodation to necessity it is.]

“« The old bird went on to the nest and off again four
or five times in about two hours. I left for breakfast
at eight o'clock, the old bird sitting on the nest.
Returned at half-past eight. The old bird was off the
nest, and the young and eggs as before lying quiet at
the bottom of the nest... . (She was off for about
ten minutes now, and then again afterwards). When
off this last time an accentor’s egg was put on to the
edge of the nest by the young cuckoo in my presence.
This was at half-past ten. The egg rested on the
edge of the nest for some time, and then it fell down
into the bush by the movements of the old bird on the
edge of the nest. The cuckoo then fell to the bottom
of the nest, apparently in a very agitated state and
overpowered or exhausted by the effort. The mother
then returned, . . . but remained a very short time
on the nest and seemed very uneasy, raising herself
and standing in the nest. The cuckoo seemed to be
increasing in bulk and was much agitated, lying at the
bottom of the nest. The two young accentors lay
motionless at the bottom of the nest, whilst the
cuckoo kept moving its wings like hands as if to
excite or stir its companions into action. In about
twenty minutes the cuckoo made two desperate
attempts to get one of the young accentors flung over
the edge of the nest, but failed, for when it got the
young one to the top it fell back again into the
bottom of the nest. Another unsuccessful struggle
took place when the mother was on the side of the

“ Wonderful and Unaccountable.” 21

nest. About eleven o’clock the first young accentor
was put over the edge of the nest exactly as illus-
trated by Mrs. Blackburn. The mother was present,
but took no notice of the affair going on, but looked
on calmly. The second egg was pushed out at one
p-m., in the presence of myself, Miss Abbs, and my
sister, whom I had specially invited to come and see
the proceedings of the young cuckoo. The last and
fourth of the lot we left in the hands of the destroyer.
It was sitting almost on the back of the cuckoo,
which had had one try to put it over the edge of the
nest, but had failed. At half-past three when we
returned to examine the nest, the young cuckoo was
the sole occupant.

‘The first baby accentor which had been thrown
on to the edge of the nest was still alive, so we put it
into a white-throat’s nest, which had four young ones
about a day old, and from all appearances it will be
properly attended to by its foster-parents.

‘* The cuckoo’s proceeding, as I saw it, is in my
opinion the most wonderful and unaccountable piece
of business that I ever witnessed in bird-life. . .

‘‘ These observations, though they may seem to be
a repetition of the accounts given by Dr. Jenner,
Montagu, Mrs. Blackburn, and other accurate obser-
vers, are nevertheless necessary in these days; for, in
the minds of some ornithologists, it seems to be still
an undecided question—how the young cuckoo gets
the young of its foster-parents from the nest! I
have before had an opportunity of ascertaining the
fact, and expressing my full belief in the accounts
given by Dr. Jenner, Col. Montagu and others, as
stated in my catalogue, (p. 26), but till last summer I

22 Life History of Common Cuckoo.

had not had a successful opportunity of watching the
whole process as carefully as I was able to do on
that occasion.

‘« Since these observations were made, my atten-
tion has been called to the following quotation from
Mr. Henry Seebohm’s History of British Birds, (vol.
li, p. 383) :—-‘It has been said, on what appears to be
incontestable evidence, that the young cuckoo, soon
after it is hatched, ejects the young or eggs from the
nest by hoisting them on its back; but one feels in-
clined to class these narratives with the equally well
authenticated stories of ghosts and other apparitions
which abound !°

“The facts observed with much care and minutely
related in this note support the ‘incontestable evi-
dence’ given by Dr. Jenner, Montagu, and Mrs.
Blackburn, so fully and conclusively, that I am at a
loss to understand how anyone who has not personally
investigated the matter thoroughly for himself could
allow himself to express so strong an opinion as Mr.
Seebohm has done in the italicised portion of the
above quotation.” *

The Rev. Alfred C. Smith mentions in Zoologist
for 1873, (p. 3474), ‘‘that Mr. Briggs had himself
(though I had overlooked the circumstance) seen
with his own eyes the attempted expulsion of a
young pipit from its nest by an infant cuckoo.”
(Zool., SS. 914.)

Mr. Oswin A. J. Lee, who has made very careful
observations on cuckoos and the behaviour of their
young, says:

* Transactions of the Northumberland and Durham Natural
History Society, vol. viii, pp. 210, 217. 1886.

Mr. $. Gould’s Observations. 23

‘In only one case have I heard of a young cuckoo
failing to destroy the whole brood. This was a
young robin which took up its position among the
ivy rootlets beside the nest, from which the cuckoo
could not eject it. Both birds eventually flew.”

Mr. Kearton has the remark: ‘The young cuckoo
turns out all the other members of the nest in which
it is hatched, an operation to which I was witness on
one occasion.” *

In 1837 J. Gould wrote thus in the Birds of
Europe:

“Shortly after the young cuckoo is excluded from
the shell, it attains so much strength as to be able to
eject the true young from the nest, itself remaining
the sole occupant; and, in fact, from its large size
and ravenous appetite it is as much as these substi-
tuted parents can do to supply it with food.” That
is good; but in his Birds of Britain (1873) he gives
a beautiful drawing of the young birds thrown out by
a young cuckoo, yet writes thus: ‘‘ May we not more
readily believe that the young have been thrown out
by the foster-parents, who, having bestowed all their
attention on the parasite, thus cause the death of
their own young, which are then cleared out of the
nest in the same way as broken eggshells, feeces, and
other extraneous matters are. . . . I do not believe
that on the third day the young cuckoo has the power
to throw out all the occupants of the nest.” Mr.
Gould’s volte face is funny; he harks back on an old
idea at the very time when the actual process of
turning out had been observed and recorded.

This pious wish or hope expressed above for the

* British Birds’ Nests, p. 42.

24 Life History of Cominon Cuckoo.

cuckoo, is, however, completely dissipated by well
verified facts and observations, some of which we
shall, in a moment, present ; young birds found lying
—having been turned out of the nests either by the
young cuckoo or some other bird—are in most cases
perfectly well nourished and with their crops full, as
we ourselves have more than once found them.
—hedge-sparrows, meadow-pipits, and wagtails, etc.
An observed fact or series of facts on our own part
which also meets the proposition that the true young
are first starved, and then over-laid by the quick-
growing young cuckoo, as Pennant fancied.

This matter just shows how little reliance is to be
placed upon so-called experts often, very often, when
they go beyond their proper office of observing, and
faithfully recording their observations. John Gould
was, like many others, a splendid practical field
ornithologist, or classifier, but he was no thinker, and
was mostly either very weak or very far wrong when
he attempted anything outside his proper province.
I question whether a pair of small birds would be able
to turn out a young bird in the way he supposes—at
all events, in some circumstances and from some
nests—in fact, the power of the young cuckoo to do
so is in itself more likely by far from its quick growth
than the other.

We are told by a more recent writer that Mr.
Gould remained sceptical about the young cuckoos
ejecting the true young from the nest, and was con-
verted by the evidence of Mrs. Blackburn and Mr.
Hancock; and in the introduction to his first work
published afterwards he frankly admitted it, though
Mr. J. E. Harting could not miss the chance in Our

Dr. A. E. Brehm’s Anecdote. 25

Summer Migrants, of reminding him that the same
observations had already been recorded by Jenner,
Montagu, Blackwall, Durham Weir, and Adolf
Miller. But Mr. Gould’s, from the extracts above,
was a re-conversion. In 1837, he, like yet bigger
men, implicitly followed Jenner ; in 1873 alongside a
drawing of the young cuckoo in the act of ejecting the
true young, he actually set down a caveat against
this charge and explained the facts differently, and
then, later, was reconverted to his opinion of 1837.
His case here was an exact illustration of Tennyson’s
words :—

“It is not true that second thoughts are best,
But first and third, which are a riper first.”

The necessity for complete success in extermina-
tion of foster-birds’ progeny on the cuckoo’s plan
may be found in this that when any of the true young
are left, the proper instinct of the foster-parents will
more or less assert itself. This has confirmation in
the following anecdote from Dr. A. E. Brehm, told
through the Rev. A. C. Smith:

‘‘In June, 1812, says my father, a wren’s nest
was found on the manor of Frohlichen-wiederkunft,
which contained two young wrens and a cuckoo—
quite an exceptional case; the dome of the nest had
preserved the young wrens from being ejected by the
cuckoo. A friend of mine took the cuckoo when it
was almost ready to fly and, as is often done by bird
fanciers, placed it in a cage, intending to bring it to
me as soon as it was fledged. The foster-parents in
this case, however, abandoned the foundling, and in
two days it was found starved to death; the wrens,

26 Life History of Common Cuckoo.

having taken up their abode elsewhere with their own
nestlings, had not been able to feed both their own
young and the cuckoo.” *

I am perfectly familiar with the paragraph on the
Cuckoo, which Mr. Waterton threw, rather inconsis-
tently, into his essay on the Jay (Natural History
Essays, 1st series), and in which he ridiculed the idea
of the young cuckoo having any such power. His
remarks about the old bird always remaining on the
nest during the whole of the day on which the chick is
excluded from the shell, in order to protect it, wants
qualification; there are, as we shall specially see,
reasons why she must sometimes leave the nest on
that day, and even when cleaning and drying the
young bird she must be on the edge of the nest, not
sitting on it strictly. But even though we admitted
that Mr. Waterton was correct here as regards
normal cases, it certainly is not true when a young
cuckoo has been hatched; for somehow or other he
has the power not to let her do so, as comes out well
in Mr. J. Hancock’s observations, and is amply con-
firmed by my own; and this, on the very first day to
a certain degree, and yet more on the second or third
day, when generally he wishes to begin more definite
operations. J am quite familiar, too, with the bit in
the essay on ‘“‘ the Wren, the Hedgesparrow, and the
Robin ”’ (second series), which is nothing more nor
less than a rough condensed repetition of what he had
said as above.

Mr. Waterton was so good an observer and so true
a lover of the birds that I should indeed be sorry were
I forced to expose some of his errors and shortcomings

* Zoologist, May, 1873.

Mr. Waterton’s Way. 27

about birds and other creatures, which usually arose
from his accepting some preconceived idea, and trying
to make all facts bend to it; and one of these is a
certain dogmatic statement in one place about the
cayman.

And Waterton, too, was very fond of a practical
joke, as his ‘* manlike monster” clearly proves, still
misleading good men and true.

Mr. Waterton’s deliverance, cited by Dr. Charles
Creighton, as authoritative and final, was made to
bear far more weight than it was in any way entitled
to. Dr. Creighton, im a burst of triumphant scepti-
cism, in effect, cries out: “If this takes place why
are we not presented with photographs of it ?>— that is
the one way to convince us. As for artists like Mrs.
Blackburn, they can draw what they please—all out
of their own brains: we can't trust them, or such as
them.” Well, just as this book was being put into
type, comes the Feathered World, of 14th July, 1899,
with two photos of young cuckoos throwing out young
birds, due to the patience, care and well-directed
enthusiasm of Mr. John Craig—whom all the world
will thank for so far decisively setting this matter at
rest. It is not so easy to do a thing of this sort—
a nest must be chosen, carefully watched, and the
psychologic moment seized without any faltering—
everything ready and nothing wanting. Mr. J. P.
Miller’s photographs are decisive enough for the most
sceptical, and anew demonstrate that to carry a preju-
dice against vaccination and its founder to the point
of rejecting reasonable evidence on a question of
Natural History is at all events not a very scientific
or philosophical procedure.

28 Life History of Common Cuckoo.

‘“We proceeded to the nest,” says Mr. Craig,
‘cand placed the young yellow-hammer I had found
and taken with me in it, beside the young cuckoo.
After a few minutes delay, the cuckoo hoisted the
yellow-hammer on its back and climbed up the side
of the nest backwards and shot the bird over the nest.
We put the bird into the nest again when the cuckoo
repeated the operation. Six snapshots were taken”
(two of which, by the great kindness of Mrs. Comyns-
Lewer, and Mr. Craig and Mr. J. Peat Millar we are
enabled to give) ‘‘ with the young cuckoo on the top of
the nest ejecting a yellow-hammer from a meadow-
pipit’s nest, one of them was taken with the yellow-
hammer lying outside the nest, the other three were
taken in different stages in the nest. So far as I am
aware, these are the first snap-shots that have been
taken of a young cuckoo ejecting a young bird from
the nest. The cuckoo was about five days old, and
the yellow-hammer about three or four at the time
that the snap-shots were taken.

‘‘On June 15, 1899, I saw another pipit’s nest, con-
taining a cuckoo’s egg and four pipits’ eggs. I broke
one of the latter’s eggs, but the egg had only been sat
upon a day or two. I again visited the nest on June
14th, but none of the eggs were hatched. I again
visited the nest the following day, when the cuckoo
had hatched, and one of the nest-owner’s eggs was
lying outside the nest. I put the egg back into the
nest again. The cuckoo was not twenty-four hours
old. I again visited the nest on the following day
along with Mr. J. Peat Millar, when we found the
cuckoo the sole occupant, and the three pipits’ eggs
lying outside the nest. We placed one of the eggs in

‘* No Child's Play.” 29

the nest, when the cuckoo immediately commenced to
hoist the egg on its back and began to climb, and
when near the top of the nest a snap-shot was taken,
but, owing to a small tin having slipped, Mr. Millar
had to expose the plate, which was spoiled in trying
to take another snapshot. The bird then became
extremely restless, and though somewhat exhausted,
it made several attempts to reach the top of the nest
with its burden, but failed.

«‘T again visited the nest on the following day, and
put an egg into it, but the bird was not inclined to
begin operations. I dropped another egg into the
nest, when it immediately began to hoist one of them
on its back, and carried it to the edge of the nest and
threw it out. But there was no snap-shot taken as
Mr. Millar had to attend to his business at home,
Saturday being a busy day with him. We again
visited the nest on June 19th, but the bird would on
no account commence operations, though we put four
eggs into the nest, showing nothing of the restless-
ness that it had done three days before.

‘I have spared no effort to prove my case and
make a clean sweep of my opponents.”

Mr. Craig's observation of the nest with two young
cuckoos in it is in favour of the stronger young
cuckoo throwing the weaker one out. ‘It was
about four miles from where I reside, and the
other one about three miles; so that every time I
visited the nest of the former I had to walk eight
miles; and of the latter about six miles, which
amounted to more than one hundred miles, which was
no child’s play on these warm summer evenings in
June.”

30 Life History of Common Cuckoo.

Mr. Craig’s observations go to support the idea that
the cuckoo will not begin operations after five days
old. Mr. Craig tested this in various ways, putting
different young birds into the cuckoo’s nest before the
cuckoo’s fifth day, and these were invariably thrown
out; but, after the fifth day, the cuckoo loses the desire
to operate on what is put beside it, as was proved by
the fact that a cuckoo of about ten days allowed a
hedgesparrow of about eight days to lie quietly
beside it.

The editress of the Feathered World makes this
note on Mr. Craig’s article and snapshots:

«« When the outline of the young cuckoo in the two
pictures is once grasped one can see how well suited
for its fell purpose is the position it takes up. Head
well down, legs wide apart gripping either side of the
nest, wings outstretched to prevent any slipping back
sideways, the unfortunate victim well poised on its
broad back, the curious depression in which serves to
steady it—the attitude is perfect for accomplishing
the final act in the curious tragedy of nature by which
a cuckoo is reared at the expense of the family of its
foster-parents. My only regret is that want of time
did not admit of my suggesting to Messrs. Craig and
Millar an enlargement of these sharp little negatives,
which, when seen under a magnifying glass, reveal to
an even greater extent the murderous method of the
nestling cuckoo, so well described by Mr. Craig in his
interesting article.”

There are various and conflicting theories about
the cuckoo’s power in adapting its eggs to the nests
in which it drops them and also regarding the process
followed, but it is undoubted that cuckoos’ eggs vary

Weight of Cuckoos' Eggs. 31

through a wider range of colour than those of any
other bird.

As to size, the eggs are on an average only one-
fourth of that expected from the size of the bird,
though in weight, as the careful tests of Mr. Bidwell
as well as my own undoubtedly show, the eggs are
much heavier than any eggs of the same size. Dr.
Rey, too, dwells on the weight of shell of egg of
Cuculus canorus.

This fact would be remarkable enough even did it
not bear on remarkable facts beyond it. The habits
of the foster-birds as to nests vary so vastly that it is
hardly credible the young of one species could thrive
in all—in open nests, in domed nests, nests hung over
water or moist places as with the Reed-wren and
Sedge-warbler, nests high in trees, nests low in shrubs
or even on the ground like those of the nightingales
and larks.

A list of 120 species in which cuckoos’ eggs have
been found is published by Mr. Bidwell in the Bulletin
of the British Ornithologists’ Club for March, 1896.
But adaptation and resource are everywhere con-
spicuous. The cuckoo, when he cannot find his
favourite nests, makes others, and apparently un-
promising ones, suit him equally well.*

*The most notable in regard to numbers of eggs from nests
of each species, in his collection of over goo, being :—1, Hedge-
sparrow, 74; 2, Redbreasts, 65; 3, Reed-warblers, 62; 4, Mea-
dow-pipits, 49; 5, Garden-warblers, 47; 6, Sedge-warblers, 41 ;
7, White-Throat, 38; 8, Pied Wagtail, 34; 9, Blackcap, 33; 10,
Tree-pipit, 33; 11, White Wagtail, 32; 12, Red-backed Shrike,
25; 13, Yellow Bunting, 23. N.B.—Mr. Bidwell tells me that
among the 74 from Accentors' nests was a blue egg, taken by
Mr. Robert H. Read, a well-known and reliable ornithologist.

32 Life History of Common Cuckoo.

Mr. Cecil Smith writes about Guernsey: “ Tree
and meadow -pipits, skylarks and stonechats, from
their numbers and the numbers of their nests, must
be the foster-parents most usually selected in the
Vale of Guernsey; other favourites, such as wag-
tails, hedge - sparrows, and robins, being compara-
tively scarce in that part of the island. *

The Vale of Guernsey is singular in its lack of
trees—it is devoted to gardening and culture of the
vine ;—flat and over considerable spaces gorse-clad,
it was at one time under water.

As one other indication of the wide range and
adaptability of the cuckoo we may note that Mr.
Robert Collett in his Bird Life in Arctic Norway
puts Cuculus canorus among the breeding species of
Arctic Norway.

Mr. Popham found Cuculus canorus on the Yenisei.
It arrived on May 22 and soon became common; and
there its cry is ‘‘ Hoo, hoo,” a sound which Seebohm
attributed to the Himalayan Cuckoo. +‘ The forest
round Yeniseisk is full of cuckoos, but we soon left
them behind us.” +

Ill.

Tue rule laid down for birds generally with regard
to helplessness after hatching is not without very
marked exceptions, even in cases where the young are
not, as in the case of partridges, water-hens, coots,
etc., able to move legs and run freely, and have
what is strictly no period of helplessness proper after

* Birds of Guernsey, p. 98.
+ Ibis, October, 1898.

The Dabchick. 33

emerging from the egg. The little Grebe or dab-
chick is a most peculiar instance. It can when only
a few hours old, with the help of the parent, dive and
float and swim a little, but it cannot walk—cannot
indeed in the least walk for some seven days; yet it
can move about pretty actively by help of legs and
wings, which, by-the-by, is itself a wonderful adapta-
tion by modification in view of remarkable exposure
to enemies.

Professor Alfred Newton in Zoologist, 1889 (p. 577),
told this about a newly-hatched little Grebe (Podi-
cipes fluviatilis), that is, dabchick, not more than
twelve hours old, which had been brought to him,
that ‘‘ when laid on a table covered with a cloth, it
not only crawled about it, but crossed it completely
from side to side without indeed actually sustaining
its weight by its wings, but dragging itself forward
by their means quite as much as it impelled itself by
its legs. The resemblance of its actions to those of
a slowly-moving reptile was very remarkable.”

Here, too, we find the young ones from the very
nest armed with special powers for their protection in
wholly special ways, the wings of the adult dabchick
being so formed that the young must be able to cling
to them so, in fact have some special means of so
holding on in running, diving, and swimming that
they are without risk of falling off, since there is no
record I can find of their having been dropped when
in the course of being so carried; and this would be
incomprehensible unless, as in one or two other cases,
some express provision had been made in view of the
necessity. Indeed, when you think of it in a creature
no more than a few hours old, it is almost as wonder-

D

34 Life History of Common Cuckoo.

ful as the powers of the young cuckoo in turning
eggs and foster-brothers out of the nest when a few
days old. And this is all the more extraordinary in
that a very careful observer has told us that in swim-
ming ‘‘old and young dabchicks use their legs like a
frog, horizontally, striking both at once, and bringing
their feet together at the end of the stroke. I have
seen the old ones diving” [and swimming ?] “in
clear water some distance, but they did not use their
wings.” *

This is the more curious and suggestive, surely,
that Professor A. Newton, as quoted above, is clear
that on a flat surface the wings are at least as much
called on in locomotion as the legs are, if indeed they
are not more efficient than the legs in aiding the
young dabchick here. But in these matters, where
observation of the creature in wild nature can be but
in hurried broken glimpses, much must always be
doubtful. The point here is that since the wings are
not used in swimming but the feet, the feet and legs
should not have been more developed and the wings
less developed at this stage in view of what, accord-
ing to all the reasoning we can base on observed
facts, it would earliest want to use both on land
and in the water for its protection and escape from
enemies.

Then there is that truly unique bird—the Hoatzin
—a native of South America and the West Indies,
which is endowed with a peculiar power of moving
about almost from the first. A curved or hooked nail
is developed even in the egg on the finger points of

*Mr. Bryan Hook in Seebohm's British Birds, quoted by Dr.
Bowdler Sharpe in Handbook (Allen's), vol. iv, p. 210.

The Hoatzin. 35

the wings, and by aid of this, it can move about from
branch to branch on the trees, thus protecting itself
from many dangers. Mr. J. B. Quelch, curator of
the British Guiana Museum, gave a very full and in-
teresting account of this strange bird in the Ibis for
1890, (pp. 327-334), and Mr. Beddard had already
dealt with its anatomical structure in the same maga-
zine for 1889, (pp. 283-289.)

Mr. Beddard elsewhere says, ‘‘ There is a curious
bird found in British Guiana, which is known as the
hoatzin. In the very young nestlings of the hoatzin
the claws of the fingers are so conspicuous that they
are actually used by the callow chick to climb with,
before the feathers of the wings are grown sufficiently
to enable them to use their wings in the proper way
in which a bird should.” *

Mr. Lucas’ study of the wing of the young hoatzin
in the Smithsonian report 1893, is a most able and
interesting document. He writes:

“The wing is hooked on the points or thumbs,
and by these soon after it is hatched, it can hold on
to twigs, etc. Not the least of the many interesting
features of the hoatzin is the rapid change which
takes place in the fore limb during the growth of the
bird, by which the hand of the nestling, with its well-
developed, well-clawed fingers becomes the clawless
wing of the old bird with its abortive outer finger.”

Other cases might be cited further to show that, in
exceptional instances very young birds are gifted with
extraordinary powers to enable them to fulfil certain

* Mr. Beddard shows both the wing of young Hoatzin (Opistho-
comus) and adult wing with claws aborted in Mr. Hudson's
British Birds, pp. 15 and 17.

36 Life History of Common Cuckoo.

demands in view of self preservation and the continu-
ance of the race, and that modifications of structure
in the quite young bird prepared for even in the egg
itself, are co-ordinated with other powers to enable it
to effect quite special and wholly exceptional and
almost incredible results. The curved or hooked
fingers of the hoatzin are clearly co-ordinated with
other powers that do not have, because they do not
demand, such special and observable anatomical modi-
fications; and in the cuckoo I myself believe that the
zygodactyle feet, the temporary depression in the
back, which remains only for eight or ten days, are
co-ordinated with other powers in wings, legs, etc.,
to enable it to do what it does when only a few days
old to turn out of the nest the eggs and young ones
of the foster parents and so secure their whole atten-
tion and feeding.

The writer of a very able and interesting article on
the cuckoo, under the title of ** A Wonder of the
Bird World,” in the Saturday Review, for March 4,
1899, said:

“ A friend of the writer saw the thing” [the turning
out of the nest of eggs and young] ‘“‘ done last season
in the case of a young cuckoo, in a sedgewarbler’s
nest and then, not by any means, for the first time in
his life. The legs of the cuckoo, in its blind and
naked infancy, may not be able to support without
props the weight of the body, but by combined move-
ments of legs, wings and body the bird does hoist up
and eject from the nest of wagtail, hedgesparrow,
and pipit” [and of pied flycatcher, redstart and
many others], ‘‘both young birds and eggs: how it
can get them out of the deeper nest of the reedwarbler
one can scarcely imagine.”

Transitory Tooth in Young Snakes. 37

The power of the young cuckoo to eject the eggs
and true birds from the nest, we say again, is really
not more wonderful than the power of the newly-
hatched dabchick for diving, swimming, etc., though
the results of the efforts are so very different, or of
the newly-hatched hoatzin to travel considerable
distances by aid of its hooked thumbs chiefly.

Mr. Darwin was of this opinion, and these cases of
ours above only support and give force to his, if,
indeed, they are not more apt as dealing with birds:

“The first step towards the acquisition of the
proper instinct might have been mere unintentional
restlessness on the part of the young bird, when
somewhat advanced in age and strength; the habit
having been afterwards improved and transmitted to
an earlier age. I can see no more difficulty in this
than in the unhatched young of other birds acquiring
the instinct to break through their own shells; or
than in young snakes acquiring in their upper jaws,
as Owen has remarked, a transitory sharp tooth for
cutting through the tough eggshell.” (Origin, p. 214.)

Cannock Brand (Longman’s, June, 1891,) tries hard
to explain the preponderance of cuckoo males by the
fact of the males of all birds being most restless in the
nest. But this for reasons we are prepared to give is
certainly not exhaustive and final, if, indeed, it has
any ground; and when he says that it seems “ still
probable that the cuckoo sometimes lays in the nest,”
we need only point to the fact that the shorter time
spent near the victimised nest is of the very essence
of success—the more, if besides depositing the egg,
there is an effort made generally to extrude one of the
true eggs from it.

38 Life History of Common Cuckoo.

IV.

Various theories have been advanced to account
for these extraordinary powers, habits, and instincts
in the cuckoo. Some have held that the individual
birds must have powers to modify the colouring of
the eggs to suit the nest into which they mean to
deposit theirs. The writer of the article in the Ency-
clopedia Britannica rejects with scorn the idea that
individual cuckoos have the power to vary their eggs
in the least degree, not to speak of through such a
range, and he suggests the theory that, by heredity,
different sets of cuckoos come to lay always the same
coloured eggs and to place them unerringly in the
nests for which they are adapted, the eggs laid by the
same individual bird being, he holds, always the
same.

He goes on to argue that were it not so, much of
the ingenuity shown by the cuckoo would be wasted,
as some birds are so much more easily imposed on in
this respect than others that it would in certain cases be
needless labour: ‘‘ We know that certain birds resent
interference with their nests much less than others,
and among them it may be asserted that the hedge-
sparrow will patiently submit to various experiments.
She will brood with complacency the egg of a red-
breast (Erithacus rubecula), so unlike her own, and
for aught we know to the contrary, may be colour-
blind. In the case of such a species there would be
no need of anything more to secure success. .. .
But with other species it may be, nay, doubtless is,
different.”

So here we really have what was a complete sliding

The “ Colour-Blind Variety.” 39

scale—from birds that eject the cuckoo’s egg and
either turn it out ‘or build it over,” or desert the
nest, down to those who seem colour-blind and un-
suspicious, with all possible degrees of suspicion or
innocence between.

Observation shows that eggs of the cuckoo de-
posited in nests of the red-backed shrike (Zanius
collurio), of the bunting (Emberiza miliaria), and of
the icterine warbler approximate in their colouring
to eggs of these species—species in whose nests the
Cuckoo rarely, in comparison with others, deposits
eggs.

The facts according to the Encyclopedia Britannica
writer, up to a certain point at all events, square with
this theory. The birds in whose nests, in his view,
the cuckoo most commonly deposits eggs are of the
“‘colour-blind”’ variety, and more indifferent to tam-
perings with the nest than are the red-backed shrike,
the bunting, and icterine warblers, where the cuckoo’s
eggs approximate in their colouring to the eggs of
these species— species in whose nests the cuckoo more
rarely deposits eggs.

Dr. Rey is here so far at one with Dr. Alfred
Newton, he says: ‘‘ Each female lays only one egg in
one nest. If more than one be found they invariably
belong to different females.”

Most cuckoos, he holds again, ‘‘ are in the habit of
placing their eggs in the nests of one species of bird,
and take to other nests only if they cannot find their
habitual nests.”

Mr. E. Hartert, at Mr. Bidwell’s exhibition of
cuckoos’ eggs, summarised as follows on this point
from Dr. Rey:

40 Life History of Common Cuckoo.

““ The eggs laid in the nests of Ruticilla phenicurus
(redstart) and Fringilla montifringilla (brambling) are
nearly always like those of the nest-owners in colour
and markings (57 out of 67 in those of the former, and
all in those of the latter). Imitations are also common
in nests of Sylvia cinerea (whitethroat), Sylvia hortensis
(garden-warbler), Acrocephalus streperus (reed warb-
ler), and A. phragmitis (sedgewarbler), while they are
rare in others, and never yet found in nests of Troglo-
dytes parvulus (common wren), Accentor modularis
(hedge sparrow), and the different Phylloscopi (warb-
lers). In most countries, it may be said that there
are many more cuckoos’ eggs which do not imitate
those of other birds than there are successful imita-
tions.” *

But all this, acute as it looks, removes the difficulty
only a step or two further back. If the thing has
become a fixed habit or instinct by heredity, then at
some point the birds reached a decision on the subject
as to which birds could be imposed upon more easily
than others; and one fatal disadvantage pursues this
theory that the earlier birds were the most discerning,

*Mr. E. Hartert wrote to meeting of the British Ornitholo-
gists’ Club, 21st February, 1894, to this effect : ‘‘ The statements
of Dr. Rey, in his Altes und Neues aus den Haushalte des Kuc-
kucks, are based upon an immense mass of material probably
greater than has ever been examined by a single naturalist, and
his results are founded upon a long experience. I myself can
add no comment.’’ But it needs to be emphatically remarked
here that the unlike eggs are so very much more easily noticed
than the matched ones, and that several, and not a few, blue
eggs have now been found in nests with the blue ones of the
accentor, and that matched eggs have been found in the nests of
wrens. (See Zoologist, 1895, p. 228).

Dr. Erasmus Darwin, 41

and, like the Cambridge carrier's horse, able to draw
an inference.

Besides, one awkward fact recently observed by
more than one person is that cuckoos have nested, or,
at all events, have been seen sitting on eggs; from
which it is legitimately inferred that in days remote
and more favourable to the bird they did themselves
brood, and that in the cases of nesting observed we
have a reversion to true and original habit. The
supposition that the cuckoo, having laid an egg on
the ground, takes a good view of its colour, and then
looks round for a nest with eggs somewhat like it, is,
to our mind, so clumsy that it will not bear looking
at. Nor can we accept the theory that a species
should have come systematically to vary so much in
a fixed and uniform way through a range of indi-
viduals and their descendants.

We are inclined to believe that there was more
power of mysterious adaptation than many would be
willing to credit.

Dr. Erasmus Darwin expressed his belief, based on
observation, that the cuckoo sometimes hatches its
own young; and Dr. Darwin gives an extract from a
letter of the Rev. Mr. Wilmot, of Morley, near
Derby, describing an instance brought to Mr.
Wilmot’s notice in July, 1792, by one of his labourers
and afterwards watched by Mr. Wilmot himself, and
seen by many other witnesses, among them a Mr.
and Mrs. Holioake. Mr. Blackwall, indeed, dealt
critically with this case in the Zoological Yournal for
1829; and urged that the witnesses one and all made
a mistake in thinking the bird a cuckoo, and that it
was a nightjar; but this error was hardly possible to

42 Life History of Common Cuckoo.

persons accustomed to see the birds, for a nightjar
brooding looks very different indeed from a cuckoo—
in fact, it looks notoriously like a stump left there,
Besides, there have been in a few cases, cuckoos
lately observed sitting on eggs with no nest but
merely a depression in earth, after the manner of the
nightjar.

Dr. Charles Creighton writes on this point :

‘‘ Previous to 1771, or before Jenner, aged twenty-
one, came to board with him, Hunter was known to
have dissected hen-cuckoos, and had satisfied himself
that there was nothing in the anatomical disposition
of the viscera, as some before him had alleged, to
prevent the bird from sitting on eggs like any other
bird.””*

In a London newspaper of September 3, 1898, we
are told that in a London garden three young cuckoos
might be seen fed by a pair of hedge-sparrows.

If this is correct, and, unfortunately I have not had
a chance of verifying it, it would go some way in the
direction of proving that the young cuckoos do not
exercise towards each other the same efforts at turning
out of the nest as they do towards the young and eggs
of the foster-parents. And truly this would indicate
wonderful instinct or reasoning; transferring the
whole process from a merely blind mechanical per-
formance to one that bordered on discrimination,
foresight, and method. This in a young, blind, and
as yet unfeathered nestling clearly discerning between
the young of its own kind and those of the foster
parents is, beyond expression, wonderful; and may

* Jenner and Vaccination, p.9. Creighton quotes Daines Bar-
rington, (Phil. Trans., vol. 62, 1771), for the first statement.

Mr. $. H. Gurney. 43

throw some light of explanation on the conduct of the
great spotted cuckoos of Spain, which we shall by-and-
by tell by quotation from Lord Lilford, often lay their
eggs, numbering from three to eight, in the nests of
the pies.

E. T. Gunn, in Zoologist, 1865 (p. 9628), tells of a
case of two young cuckoos in one nest which lived till
they were a considerable size, when one of them died.

Mr. J. H. Gurney thus closes a most interesting
short paper in the Zoologist, for December, 1897:

‘““We have had two nests this year with two
cuckoos in each, one belonging to a pied wagtail, and
the other to a spotted flycatcher ; but from what I
can learn one cuckoo only was reared in each nest.”

“] think,” says Mr. Norgate, ‘‘ we should more
often find two or more cuckoos’ eggs in one nest, but
that I fancy the second and succeeding cuckoo would
be likely to take out the biggest egg (i.c., the previous
cuckoo’s), rather than a smaller egg of foster-parent.

I have found cuckoo's eggs uninjured outside the
nest, and on other occasions the foster-parents’ out-
side the nest sometimes uninjured. I have more than
once found the cuckoo’s egg uninjured in a nest with
the foster-parent’s eggs all broken, but in such cases
usually found very many feathers of foster-parent and
sometimes the dead foster-parent outside the nest:
one often sees a scuffle between cuckoos and small
birds.”

Mr. J. H. Gurney writes:

“Two young cuckoos in one nest is a thing very
rarely witnessed, and it has only happened in this
county (Norfolk) about three times: on Mousehold
Heath (as noted above), at Cringleford, and at Bracon-

44 Life History of Common Cuckoo.

ash. On one of these occasions I was told they both
lived till they were a considerable size, and then one
died, instead of being ejected by the other young
cuckoo as might have been anticipated. The two on
Mousehold were in a titlark’s nest, and what added
very much to the discovery was the circumstance of
an addled cuckoo’s egg with the young cuckoos.
There must, therefore, if there was no mistake about
it, have been three cuckoo’s eggs at one time in the
nest, a portentous prospect indeed for the poor lark!”

On the other hand, we have the following para-
graph :

THe TaBLes TuRNED.

An Epsom contributor to Nature Notes writes,
September, 1898 :—‘‘I believe that when a cuckoo
deposits her eggs in another bird’s nest, the intruder,
as soon as it is big enough, ousts the rightful nest-
lings. But early in June an instance to the contrary
occurred in my garden. I was sitting under a tree,
on the trunk of which | knew there was a sparrow’s
nest and young birds, as I had watched the old birds
going to and fro. There was a sudden clamour and
disturbance, and a young cuckoo was jerked out of the
nest, and fell, with rather a heavy thud, close to my
feet. There had been violent measures before the
expulsion, for there was blood upon its beak, and
after a few gasps—-showing its bright orange mouth
and throat—it died in my hand. The nest was too
high—it was eight or ten feet from the ground—for
me to look into it, but it would be interesting to have
known how many sparrow beaks it took to serve the
ejectment.”’

“ALINVY NI CNT ONDOR ANV OOMOOD TANATAVOET

a WE
se —

Jenner's Report. 45

Or whether another cuckoo chanced to be in that
nest—a thing which, if ascertained, would have been
important.

Mr. Howard Saunders positively asserts that the
same female sometimes deposits two and even three
eggs in one nest; and that where there are two
cuckoos in the same nest the struggle for existence is
sometimes severe.”

Jenner’s report is absolutely in favour of the theory
that the young cuckoos act towards each other pre-
cisely as they do towards the true occupants of the
nest. I do not, however, implicitly pin my faith to
Jenner, and wish—devoutly wish—for well verified
observations of others on this point to enable me and
others finally to accept or to reject what is implied in
the following passage :

‘*¢ Two cuckoos and one hedge-sparrow were hatched
in the same nest; one hedge-sparrow’s egg remained
unhatched. In a few hours a contest between the
cuckoos for the possession of the nest, which con-
tinued undetermined till the afternoon of the following
day, 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 combat-
ants,” he says, ‘alternately appeared to have the ad-
vantage, as each carried the other several times nearly
to the top of the nest, and again sank down depressed
with the weight of its burden; till, at length, after
various efforts, the strongest prevailed, and was after-
wards brought up by the hedge-sparrow.”’

In the case of the two young cuckoos in a meadow-
pipit’s nest, observed by Mr. John Craig, he thought

* Manual of Birds, p. 278.

46 Life History of Common Cuckoo.

that the eggs had been ‘deposited by two different
birds, as they were different in colour, size and shape,
but I do not mean,” he goes on, ‘‘that the same
cuckoo would not lay eggs quite as different in colour,
size and shape. One or more of the nest owner’s
eggs must have been removed by one of the cuckoos,
as she is in the habit of doing so, by swallowing them,
when a full clutch is laid before she deposits her own,
and I have never seen a meadow-pipit’s nest with
fewer than four eggs to the clutch.” .... These
two birds had a tremendous tussle, though, says Mr.
Craig, ‘‘ they were not two days old and blind.”

He goes on to write:

“We again visited the nest on June oth to takea
snapshot, when we found only one of the cuckoos in
the nest and the other one outside. Having a young
pipit with us we put it in the nest. The young
cuckoo hoisted it again and again on its back, but the
pipit always got jammed near the top of the nest.
We then put in the other cuckoo, when a desperate
struggle commenced. Sometimes the birds put their
bill or head against the opposite side of the nest for
more pressure when commencing to climb. Several
times the top bird tumbled over the head of the other,
like a rider falling over the head of a horse. After a
short respite the birds became extremely restless, and
again commenced the struggle. Two snapshots were
then taken, but they were useless.”

‘‘] again visited the nest with Mr. Barron, June
roth, when we found only one of the cuckoos in the
nest, and the other one outside; but the photographer
failed to put in an appearance, having got otherwise
engaged. We then put the other cuckoo into the nest

Mr. Fohn Craig's Facts. 47

again, when the one that was in possession began to
hoist it once more on its back, and climbed up the
side of the nest backwards, and threw it out of the
nest, which it had little difficulty in doing, as the bird
was so weak from want of food. We then put the
weak bird into the nest again to give it a chance to
recover, and took the other one away with us for
about an hour. We then put it into the nest again,
when the weak bird made several attempts to eject its
companion, but it was too feeble. It then acted on
the defensive, by lying in a canted position by keeping
the side that was next its opponent downwards, with
one of its legs stretched out , and its claws against the
opposite side of the nest. We then bolstered up the
nest to give the weak bird a chance to recover. On
the following day I again visited the nest, but the
weak bird had disappeared altogether. The parent
birds paid no attention whatever to the young cuckoo
when outside the nest, even although sitting at the
side of it.”

These facts, from a very reliable field-ornithologist,
taken in connection with others we have given,
suggested the question :

Is it possible that instinct as to birds from the same
mother cuckoo in one nest indicates the cases in which
two cuckoos in one nest lie apparently quite amicably
together, while those from different hens bear them-
selves toward each other precisely as they do to the
legitimate birds of the nest ?—try to turn each other
out and fight till the strongest prevails? Mr. Craig
believed that in above case the eggs were from different
hens.

We cannot, at all events, see anything whatever in

48 Life History of Common Cuckoo.

such procedure likely to be advantageous to the
species |

The evidence is, however, by no means satisfactory
or conclusive that, when two cuckoos’ eggs are
dropped into one nest the two cuckoos invariably try
to turn each other out—the strongest finally prevail-
ing. We have just cited two cases where this was
not the fact, and others might have been added.

Yet, Mr. Romanes, with the unfortunate tendency
to generalise from too narrow a basis of particulars,
writes thus :

‘« Among birds we find mistaken instinct exhibited
by the cuckoo when it lays two eggs in the same nest,
with the inevitable result that one of the young birds
will afterwards eject the other.” *

And in not a few of the cases it is plain that there
was no mistaken instinct at all in the sense Mr.
Romanes means, because in not a few nests it would
be simply impossible to see the former deposited
cuckoo’s egg: unless Mr. Romanes indeed supposed
that these second eggs are invariably deposited by
the same bird that laid the first egg—a thing about
which we are still in the greatest uncertainty, and
certainty regarding which would clear up a lot of
other things for us. Meantime Mr. Romanes’s words
above are only like too many of his—a doubtful point
assumed as certain and absolutely settled, and then
a bold, big argument, dogmatically raised upon it !

In cases where cuckoos’ eggs have been deposited
in blackbirds’ or pigeons’ nests there would be a more
equally matched contest between the young ones of
the different parents from their size; but in some

*Romanes's Ment. Evolution, p. 168.

“ The Cornhill Magazine.” 49

cases, both of blackbirds and pigeons, it has been found
that the eggs of the blackbird or pigeon had been
punctured or cracked by mandibles to prevent hatch-
ing, that so the young cuckoo might not run the risk
of such an equal contest. This shows still further
forecast and ingenuity on the part of the parent
cuckoos, if we are right in inferring, as we are surely
forced to do, that the parent cuckoos were here the
malefactors; and also may be taken to prove that the
cuckoos in certain ways do in so far look after the
welfare and safety of their progeny. Darwin tells us
that the Molothrus bonariensis (American cowbird)
has the most extraordinary habit of pecking holes in
the eggs, whether of their own species or of their
foster-parents, which they find in the appropriated
nests,” and to this we shall refer again with evidence
from first-hand reporters.

V.

A wriTER on ‘ British Birds: their Nests and Eggs,”
in the Cornhill Magazine, says :—

“It was once thought that the cuckoo paired, but
it is now known that the species is polygamous.| The
number of hens that constitute a harem is not known,
but from the number of bachelor birds the males
must greatly predominate over the females. The
egg of the cuckoo has been found in the nests of sixty
different species, several of which are exceedingly

* Origin of Species, p. 215, 6th edition.

+ Not polygamous, surely, but polyandrous, and instead of
harem, with a number of hens, the question must be how many
cocks attend one hen ?

50 Life History of Common Cuckoo.

small, and moreover domed.* Among the sixty nests
patronised were the unlikely ones of the butcher-bird,
jay, and magpie—all either bird or egg destroyers.
This may seem to reflect on the cuckoo’s stupidity ;
and the bird certainly exhibits deplorable ignorance
of the fitness of things when it deposits its egg in
the nest of the diminutive goldcrest, or the cumber-
some one of the cushat. A goldcrest might con-
veniently be stowed away in the gape of a young
cuckoo without the latter detecting that the morsel
was much more than a normal supply. The nests in
which the eggs of cuckoos are most frequently found
are those of the meadow-pipit, hedge-sparrow, and
reed-warbler. Now the eggs of these birds vary to
a very considerable degree; and the question arises
whether the cuckoo has the power of assimilating the
colour of its egg to those among which it is to be
deposited. Certain eminent continental ornitholo-
gists claim that this is so, but the facts observed in
England hardly bear out the conclusion. Brown
eggs have been found among the blue ones of the
the hedge-sparrow, redstart, wheatear; among the
green and grey ones of other birds; and the purely
white ones of the wood-pigeon and turtle-dove. The
cuckoo's egg is brown, and it must be admitted that
the great majority of the nests which it patronises
contain eggs more or less nearly resembling its own.
There is a general family likeness about those laid by
the bird, not only in the same clutch, but from year
to year. Admitting that the eggs of the cuckoo, as
a species, vary more than those of other birds, it is
yet probable that the same female invariably lays

* Exactly double sixty Mr. Bidwell gives.

Mr. Seebohm’s Reproductions. 51

eggs of one colour. This can only be surmised by
analogy, though the one fact bearing on the question
is where two cuckoo’s eggs were found,in the same
nest [and] which differed greatly. More might have
been learnt from the incident, had it been known for
certain whether the eggs were laid by the same or
different birds. There is a general tendency in the
habits of animals to become hereditary, and it seems
not unreasonable to suppose that a cuckoo which has
once laid its egg in the nest of any particular species
should continue to do so, and that the young cuckoo
should also continue the practice in after years.”

Mr. Seebohm’s reproductions of cuckoo’s eggs,
however, show that this writer was in the greatest
possible error in declaring the cuckoo’s eggs to be in-
variably brown, which suggests the idea that, while
right on some points, he wrote from imperfect know-
ledge in others, and was not himself a close observer.

Mr. Bidwell’s list gives 120 species in the nests of
which the cuckoo drops its eggs, and in the Zoologist
for 1883 he writes that “ five eggs are said to be laid
in the season by the cuckoo at intervals of seven or
eight days;”’ but this is surely an exaggeration. It
is probable, however, that the cuckoo has more power
than other birds in retaining perfect eggs in the ovary
—a point supported by a fact thus given by Mr. J.
H. Gurney:

“Our Norwich bird-stuffers have on two or three
occasions taken perfect eggs out of cuckoos, which
indicates some latent power of retaining them in the
ovarium—a power long ago suspected by Montagu.”

Mr. Romanes, in his Animal Intelligence, writes in
a note at the end of his chapter on ‘“ Bird Intelli-
gence: ”

52 Life History of Common Cuckoo.

“Since going to press, I have seen, through the
kindness of Mr. Seebohm, some specimens of cuckoo’s
eggs coloured in imitation of those belonging to the
birds in the nests of which they are laid. There can
be no question about the imitation.”

Dr. Baldamus, in Naumannia, vol. for 1863-4, (p.
414), gives sixteen coloured drawings of eggs of com-
mon cuckoo—all very different indeed, from the blue
of the redstart and hedge-sparrow and pied fly-catcher
to the brown-blotched eggs of larks and pipits.

The late-lamented Mr. Henry Seebohm, on the
whole a careful observer, despite Professor Newton’s
depreciation, as well as an exquisite writer, in his
plates of birds’ eggs, appended to his History of
British Birds, gives fifteen cuckoo’s eggs which vary
through a wide range, one or other of which might
fairly simulate the eggs of the hedge-sparrows, red-
starts, pipits, fly-catchers, warblers, little buntings,
wagtails, tits, and some of the finches, wrens, and
blackcaps. One of these has undoubtedly a blue tint
which would make it admirably adapted to impose
even upon the redstart, or the pied fly-catcher, or the
accentor—pace Mr. Luke Ellis, who in the Echo
some years ago, ridiculed the idea that a cuckoo
could lay a blue egg. But Mr. Seebohm was of
another mind. He wrote:

‘A cuckoo which lays blue eggs always lays blue
eggs, and its descendants will continue to lay blue
eggs; it was probably hatched in a nest containing
blue eggs, and will, to the best of its ability, intrust
the care of its eggs to foster-parents of the same
species as those which tended it in its infancy... .
It is very seldom that the cuckoo’s egg is found with-

Pralle’s Collection. 53

out small round dark markings, like fly spots. . . . I
have taken a young cuckoo out of a blue egg on
which they were so pale as almost to escape notice.’

Mr. Dresser gives the following very interesting
passage from Mr. Seebohm’s notes on Mr. Pralle’s
collection at Hildesheim :

“In this collection are twelve blue cuckoo’s eggs,
some uniform, unspotted, whereas others have faint
spots, like tly spots, here and there. The first of
these was in a nest of Savricola stapazina, and is blue,
with a few fly spots; No. 2 ditto; Nos. 3 and 4 are
unspotted blue, and are each with five eggs of Phyl-
loscopus sibilatrix; No. 5 is with three eggs of
Ruticilla phenicurus, and No. 7 with three eggs of
the same species, this latter egg being blue, with a
few faint fly spots; Nos. 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 are all blue,
with traces of spots, and are all with four or six eggs
of Ruticilla phenicurus except the last which was
found with only one egg of that species.” +

Mr. J. H. Gurney, in his admirable paper in the
Norfolk and Suffolk Natural History Society Fournal,
well says:

‘* Our cuckoo lays blue eggs oftener than is thought,
and Coccystes jacobinus, a cuckoo inhabiting Africa
and India, always lays them: to say blue cuckoo’s
eggs have never been met with in England is quite
incorrect. . . . In one nest we learn the blue egg
was a very little larger than a hedge-sparrow’s, but it
produced a cuckoo, which only shows how easily they
may be passed over.’ {Italics are mine.]

In the second volume of Dr. Bowdler Sharpe’s

* p. 384, vol. i.
+ Birds of Europe, ad loc.

54 Life History of Common Cuckoo.

Handbook of British Birds, we find him following
Mr. Seebohm in the idea that the cuckoo which
lays blue eggs had itself come from a blue egg, and
always lays blue eggs, and so with the other coloured
egg-laying cuckoos. But this seems to carry the
great difficulty only one short step further back.
How did the cuckoos get differentiated into different
coloured egg-layers? It could not have been before
the habit had been formed of putting the eggs into
other birds’ nests. Ifthe cuckoos, then, became at one
step definitely classed as blue egg-layers, fly-spotted
blue egg-layers, light-brown blotched egg -layers,
or dark-brown blotched, or lark-like egg- layers,
and so on, is that not even as much a mystery as
though we were to allow some individual variation in
the coloration of eggs? Let anybody look at the
fifteen different eggs of the cuckoo carefully engraved
and coloured in the supplement of Seebohm’s British
Birds, or at the sixteen coloured specimens from Dr.
August Baldamus in Naumannia, and he will admit
that something wholly unexampled and exceptional
must apply to a class of birds producing such varied
eggs. The problems connected with the cuckoo are
not yet by any means settled ; so there is an interest-
ing field of observation and inquiry still left open for
any ambitious young naturalist.

Among the blue eggs of Mr. Pralle’s collection,
Mr. Seebohm speaks of blue eggs uniform, unspotted,
and of others with spots,—faint spots, like fly-spots.
Now, what I wish to ask on this head is, are the uni-
form blue eggs confined to one bird or definite family
of birds, and each of the variously fly-spotted eggs to
another bird or class of birds. By this process we

A Clear Rule Wanted. 55

should have another lot of different eggs, say, six to
add to our differentiated cuckoos, and, following the
same reasoning applied to all slight differences, we
should have at least another half-dozen, thus bringing
the number of known different egg-laying cuckoos up
to at least nearly thirty. It would be a benefit if the
supporters of the theory of different cuckoos for each
different egg would tell us at what point of difference
you have assurance of the fixed and definite ma-
ternity, so to speak. Some such rule of principle is
much needed. Do the various fly-spots and different
distribution of fly-spots (for in some cases they are
freely and almost equally scattered at one end, and in
others drawn into a sort of faint ring between the end
of the egg and the part where it begins to contract),
each trace themselves to definite cuckoos ; or at what
point does the process end? We know perfectly
well that when closely looked at there is no case in
which any birds’ eggs are exactly alike, and that
sometimes the eggs of one clutch—more especially of
certain birds—will so markedly differ from each other
as to spots and arrangement of spots as to look rather
a motley group; and if in the case of the cuckoo no
variety is to be allowed to the female here, we want
to have some clear rule about it. We know nothing
definite about what determines these differences, but
our point here is, that if you go the whole hog, as
you ought to do, about your different egg-laying
cuckoos, you foist on the individual layers a uni-
formity such as is found in no other bird—a thing
adding another mystery to the mysteries about the
cuckoo and its eggs.

In case of any dispute, here are Dr. Bowdler
Sharpe’s own words:

56 Life History of Common Cuckoo.

“Tt is supposed that the colouration of the cuckoo’s
egg is an hereditary faculty, and that each female
cuckoo lays a particular type of egg. This is in all
probability the case, and cuckoos which lay blue eggs
come of a stock which has been hatched from blue
eggs, and will continue to lay them and deposit them
in the nest of some blue-egg-laying species.’*

Set this against the following: “In none of the
hedge-sparrows’ nests, for instance, have we a blue
cuckoo’s egg.” Another authority puts it that canorus
“will by preference lay in the nest of the species
which brought her up.” The great comparative
number of blue cuckoos’ eggs laid in the nests of
birds with brown-blotched and even lark-like eggs,
and, more still, eggs like those of the nightingale,
suffices to prove that there must be so very many ex-
ceptions to the rule laid down in the words italicised
above that it is completely invalidated, and so far as
that point is concerned cannot be said to give force
to the reason for the production of blue eggs in certain
families of the cuckoo. It is a very good theoretic
reason to justify, as it were, a hard and fast theory of
radical differentiation of cuckoos into blue egg-laying
and other egg-laying families; but facts are against it
clearly enough ; seeing that in so many instances the
blue eggs are xot laid in the nest of some blue egg-
laying species—and thence a mere waste of more
specialised colouration—since, surely, it would have
been a gain to have better matched the eggs, were it
only that bird-nesters and even ornithologists might
have been more completely and longer deceived;
though it is difficult to see how if, in times past, blue

* Allen's Handbook, ii, p. 28

Mr. Howard Saunders’s View. 57

eggs of the cuckoo were as liberally laid among
clutches of a wholly different colour, as they are now,
English ornithologists could have gone on from the
days of Jenner down to those of Seebohm and Elwes
—about a whole century—and denied that any cuckoo
whatever laid blue eggs. It is almost incomprehen-
sible that such a condition of things could have gone
on—unless indeed the facts were different in the past
from what they are now and have been for several
recent years, when one of the most extraordinary
things has been the appearance of cuckoos’ blue eggs
not with blue eggs, but with eggs of all other and con-
trasted colours, even in the nest of the nightingale.
If this had been so invariably for nigh a hundred
years, what utterly blind bogglers English ornitholo-
gists must indeed have been !

Further still, Mr. Howard Saunders says (right in
teeth of Dr. Bowdler Sharpe’s deliverance above) that
eggs of a pale blue have been found, though not
invariably located, in nests of the hedge-sparrow and
redstart.*

If you go strictly for a blue-egg-laying cuckoo as
having come from the nest of a blue-egg-laying bird,
always laying its eggs in a nest where blue eggs are,
how do you account for the very, very large number
in proportion of blue eggs laid beside other coloured
eggs, making in many cases very motley groups?
And if, like the hedge-sparrow, there are whole species
that are easily taken in, and will bear any amount of
interference with their nests—birds which are every-
where numerous—why should the cuckoo need to

* Manual, p. 278. Mr. Saunders writes in new edition of
1897-8, ‘‘ though these have not invariably been located.”

58 Life History of Common Cuckoo.

have recourse to such as demand exact matching of
eggs as Professor Newton above has told us? In
every case of that kind the cuckoo takes on itself
a lot of trouble for nothing. And, besides, what do
you make of the bird out of a blue egg that was laid
in a brown blotched egg-laying birds’ nest—would it,
when its turn came, choose a blue-laying bird’s nest
to drop its eggs in, or would it choose the same kind
of nest as that it came out of ?

Dr. Bowdler Sharpe has yet this problem to solve
and this question to answer. Thus the two state-
ments of tendency expressed in the one case, as con-
tinuing to deposit the blue eggs (a /a Dr. Bowdler
Sharpe, Seebohm, and Professor Newton) ‘in the
nest of some blue-egg-laying species,” and in the
other, as ‘by preference laying in the nest of the
species which brought her up,” are almost through
the whole range exclusive of each other, simply be-
cause such a large number of blue eggs are laid,
not in blue-egg nests, but in others. The two ten-
dencies cannot be brought into harmony in view of
facts.

Even so late as 1873, as the much cuckoo-laden
volume of the Zoologist for that year bears witness,
Professor Alfred Newton was very sceptical about
blue cuckoo’s eggs, openly expressing doubts as to
the correctness of Dr. Baldamus’s report in that par-
ticular, and so positive was he that the Rev. Alfred
C. Smith, after citing from a letter to the Field, Mar.
15th, 1873, where the Professor declared, that so far
as he was aware, ‘no one has ever found in the nest of
a hedge-sparrow a cuckoo’s egg which is similar to
that of the hedge-sparrow,” simply went on to print

Mr. Brine’s Letter. 59

the following letter from a friend—a gentleman whom
he could absolutely trust :

Dear Sir,

I have found the cuckoo’s egg several times in the hedge-
sparrow’s nest, and once two eggs, but varying from each other
both in colour and size. Having a doubt whether both belonged
to one cuckoo, or even one of them to a cuckoo at all, it being,
if almost, as intense a blue as the hedge-sparrow’s, but very
little larger (the other being much lighter in colour and freckled
at its larger end), I determined to watch the nest, which con-
tained four hedge-sparrow's eggs besides the cuckoo’s two eggs
above mentioned. Of the hedge-sparrow's eggs, one was some-
how lost ; the rest were all hatched, but one of the young cuckoos
died after two or three days’ existence (I believe from being
too freely handled and exposed): the other managed, in about a
week’s time, to get rid of its companions, and when fledged was
himself made a prisoner, lived some months in a cage, and then
moped and died. I have also found the cuckoo’s egg in the
wagtail's nest (though how it got there I could never tell), in the
yellow-hammer’s and chaffinch's nests, and I have known it
found in the thrush’s nest, and in all of these I have been re-
markably struck with the similarity of colour with the eggs of
the difterent birds in whose nests they were; indeed for several
years I had the egg from the thrush's nest, which could scarcely
be recognised from the egg of the thrush in size, colour, or in
markings. I will add only one other fact: that I have found a
cuckoo’s egg in a hedge-sparrow’s nest two years in the same
hedge, which induces me to think it probable that both eggs
may have belonged to the same bird. As the facts above stated
are strictly within my own knowledge, you may make what use
of them you please.

J. E. Brine.

Abbey House, Shaftesbury.

And about the same time, Mr. Henry Hadfield,
Ventnor, Isle of Wight, in Zoologist, June, 1873, in
replying to some of Professor Newton's statements

60 Life History of Common Cuckoo.

about hereditary influence on cuckoo’s eggs, said :—
“TI do not see why the presumed habit should be
more likely to be hereditary in the cuckoo than in
any other species. Mr. Newton, it is true cites an
instance or two of there having been a family likeness
found between the eggs laid by the same bird, so that
they could be readily distinguished from others ; but
these rare—not to say accidental—varieties in the col-
ouring of eggs may arise from different causes—for
instance, the age of the bird or defective organization.
The eggs of many birds are found to vary more or
less in colour, — the eggs of the common house-
sparrow, for instance,—though I know of no regular
or permanent varieties in the species.”

And, let Professor Newton now reconcile it how
he may, we are fully assured that, in this last sen-
tence, Mr. Hadfield, from his point of view, is right.

Vi.

Tue peculiar formation in the cuckoo which is said
to prevent incubation is shared in greater or lesser
degree with other birds which do incubate. This
malformation results from the stomach lying beneath
the sternum ; but the nightjar is so formed, and yet
it broods its own young; and more recent investi-
gators show that at least one other brooding bird has
the same form ; while the two common North Ameri-
can cuckoos have the same form, and yet brood some
of their eggs and young ones. The cause of the
habit must therefore be sought in other sources.
Herissant attributed the non- brooding of the

Hunter's Dissections. 61

cuckoo to the position of the gizzard ; which is placed
further back on the abdomen, and is less protected by
the sternum than in other birds. But all these points
are efficiently met by the results of the dissections of
Hunter, already referred to at p. 42.

With regard to the theory that the same female in-
variably lays eggs of one colour, the observations of
Herr Adolf Miller, communicated to Westermann’s
Monatshefte, raised difficulties.

On the 16th of May, 1888, Herr Adolf Miller was
crossing a wood, when a cuckoo started from almost
under his feet. He examined the ground carefully,
and discovered beneath a tussock of grass, in a little
hollow, three eggs. The first was light yellow with
brown spots, the second orange with greenish
lines, the third, smaller than the others, was of a
greenish grey with minute red spots and blotches of
reddish brown. Herr Miiller, with true German pa-
tience, came every day, and, by the aid of an opera
glass, observed, without disturbing her, the habits of
the extraordinary bird, which chance had revealed to
him. She proceeded to sit with irreproachable regu-
larity. In ten days a young one was hatched. The
mother abandoned the two sterile eggs and devoted
herself to the little cuckoo, whom she sheltered under
her wings in the keen morning air, and supplied with
caterpillars from a neighbouring oak copse. In three
weeks it could fly; whereas under the care of foster
parents young cuckoos do not master that accom-
plishment until after the lapse of six or seven weeks.

Herr Adolf Miller draws from these observations
the following results: Ibis 1889, p. 219.

1. That the cuckoo, in exceptional circumstances,

62 Life History of Common Cuckoo.

incubates and hatches one or more of its own eggs,
which, in these cases it apparently lays together in a
safe place on the ground, without preparing any nest.
2. That the eggs of the same cuckoo may be very
different in colour and markings. If this be so, the
purely theoretical idea held in certain quarters, that
each hen cuckoo lays eggs of the same colour and
markings, and of ‘one beautiful type,” which are
destined to be laid in the nests of one particular
species of small bird, and are rarely the same colour
as those of the foster-mother, and that she only lays
them in the nest of this species, falls to the ground.
I am perfectly aware that certain ornithologists
and ornithological societies were well inclined to dis-
credit Miller and to reject his report; but, taking his
observations in connection with those of Dr. Erasmus
Darwin and Mr. Wilmot, and, more recently, obser-
vations as reported, I think, in the Field of a case on
Wimbledon Common and some observations of my
own, I am not so certain that there may not be some-
thing in Herr Miiller’s report. Certain of the ornitho-
logists who rejected Miiller were the very men who
had obstinately insisted for years and years that
cuckoos never laid blue eggs; and some of them, to
save their amour propre, would fain deny them still.
There is also the case of Herr Kiessel and three
other eye-witnesses who reported that in the end of
May, 1868, a cuckoo reared her young in a wood near
St. Johann. Kiessel observed the bird regularly and
saw that both the eggs were hatched and the little
birds reared with tenderness and care, and the whole
story was told and verified in the German Garten-

laube.

The Cuckoo has an Object. 63

Since then there have now and again been notes
made by observers to the same effect. An Essex
naturalist, with whom I am acquainted, declares an
experience of the same kind. It is evident that the
cuckoo at one time—though a remote time—nested
and brooded its own eggs and young, and there is
surely no impossibility in reversions to original habit
in rare circumstances here as is found to be the case
in many other instances.

If it is argued that other birds’ eggs vary to a
much greater extent than is believed by any but
systematic ornithologists, it is enough to say that this
is beside the mark, because, so far as we know, there
is no object in this variation : it is matter of accident
or change of physical condition; but it is wholly
different with the cuckoo, because in its case there is
an object—an object of the most definite kind. Its
success must depend either on the stupidity of certain
birds, or on its own cleverness and power of imita-
tion, so far as certain other birds are concerned; and,
since it can never know beforehand exactly what may
be required of it—as witness the case of the reed-
warbler which buried two cuckoo’s eggs because it
could not turn them out (and to this we shall refer
again)—the very existence of the race depends on
deception or studied colouration of eggs up to a
certain point, so far as certain birds’ nests are used
by it.

If there were no difference in the powers of birds in
discriminating and rejecting, the problem to our mind
would be much simplified from the point of view of
Professor A. Newton, but he, alas! is very clear on
the difference, and indeed makes all he can of it.

64 Life History of Common Cuckoo.

Vil.

In the cases at the South Kensington Museum de-
voted to birds’ eggs and nests, we find in those set
apart for the clutches among which the cuckoo’s eggs
were found, one case in which the blue eggs of the
Accentor modularis (hedge-sparrow) were exactly imi-
tated as to tint, though the cuckoo’s egg was a good
deal larger than the sparrow’s; in three other cases
brown spotted eggs lay beside the sparrow’s pale-blue
ones ; and another blue egg beside blue eggs of the red-
start, only larger; while, with regard to reed-warb-
lers, yellow wagtails, white wagtails, aquatic warblers,
garden warblers, pied wagtails, the eggs had a general
likeness, but were larger, and some of them some
shades darker. Ina few cases—that of the meadow-
pipit especially, on which the cuckoo very frequently
imposes—the eggs were markedly lighter— much
lighter and larger. The cuckoo’s egg was much
darker than those of the yellow-hammer beside it, and
the intruded egg was very unlike those of the willow-
warbler — much larger and darker.* Dr. Bowdler

* Nor can there be, on my part, any error of memory or lapse
here; for a writer—very exact and reliable—in Chambcers's
¥Yournal for August, 1899 (since this book was written), in an
article on ‘‘Cuckoo Mimicry,” has this paragraph :

“ The hedge-sparrow—the most frequent foster-parent of the
cnckoo—lays a turquoise blue egg, whilst the ordinary colour of
the cuckoo's egg is a dull speckled-brown, very like that of a sky
lark. In the Natural History Museum collection there are six
clutches of eggs of the hedge-sparrow, each containing a cuckoo’s
egg. The localities from which they come are: (1) Brighton, (2)
Hayward's Heath, (3) South West Lancashire, (4) North West
Cheshire, (5) and (6) Hampshire. In the case of No. 1 (Brighton)

Wonderful Mimicry. 65

Sharpe assured me, however, that they had in reserve
many blue eggs of the cuckoo; which just leads to
the question, in what proportion of cases the brown-
spotted eggs are intruded into the hedge-sparrow’s
nests, as in the three cases noted above.

Here arises a difficulty about the theory of the
cuckoo always laying eggs the same colour. For,
if the blue-laying cuckoos know the hedge-sparrow’s
nest, and use it, these facts would indicate failure on
the part of the cuckoos who lay brown-blotched eggs,
and place them too in the nests of accentors, or lay
blue or bluish eggs in the nests of birds which have
brown, or brown spotted, or blotchedeggs. I myself,
in Essex, last year (1898) found two blue cuckoo’s

the cuckoo’s egg is the counter-part of the hedge-sparrow in texture
and colour, though almost twice as large—a wonderful instance
of mimicry. In all the other cases (Nos. 2—6), the cuckoo egg
is the ordinary dull speckled-brown—a striking contrast. In
the case of two other species—the pied fly-catcher (Silesia), and
the redstart (Vaalkerstaad), both of which lay blue eggs—the
cuckoo imitates their colour, but the egg is much larger.

In the following instances the imitative colouring is very perfect :
Lesser whitethroat, mottled greenish-grey (Halle, Saxony) ;
orphean warbler, white pale greenish-blue, spotted (Malaga) ;
garden warbler, buff-speckled (Brandenburg); blue-headed
yellow wagtail, grey speckled (Frankfort-on-Oder); barred
warbler, pale mottled green (Alsace) ; meadow pippit, reddish
brown (North West Cheshire); white wagtail, grey speckled
(Germany); linnet, white greenish spots (Germany). In the
case of the red-backed shrike or butcher-bird (Marne), the resem-
blance between the two eggs in size and colouring— cream body
colour with reddish cloud at the upper end—is so remarkable
that one might be pardoned for imagining that there had been
some mistake.” And yet in spite of the words in this extract, put
in italics by me, Dr. Bowdler Sharpe unaccountably says there
is no record of a blue cuckoo’s egg in a hedge-sparrow’s nest !

FE

66 Life History of Common Cuckoo.

eges in hedge-sparrow’s nests, and also two brown
blotched cuckoo’s eggs in hedge-sparrow’s nests. I
do wish observers would make careful note of this,
that some idea of the proportion obtaining in these
matters might be reached, and further inferences as
to the cuckoo’s power and knowledge carefully drawn
from the facts observed.

In the collection of clutches of eggs in the British
Museum, are cuckoo’s eggs showing the exact colour
and markings of the eggs of the birds victimised:
“ pied wagtails, yellow wagtails, blue-headed wagtails,
meadow-pipits, tree-pipits, skylarks, chaffinches, reed-
warblers, and sedge-warblers, orphean-warblers, etc.”
So says Dr. Bowdler Sharpe, in effect, and he thus
further notices curious points:

‘The small size of the egg laid by the cuckoo, con-
sidering the bulk of the bird, is another peculiar
feature in its economy. Great diversity of colour,
also is one of its characteristics, and considering the
various types of eggs laid by the cuckoo, it is not
wonderful that the theory exists that the bird places
its eggs in the nest of a species, the eggs of which
most resemble its own in colour. That there is great
truth in this theory I firmly believe, otherwise, it
would be difficult to account for the fact that blue
cuckoos’ eggs should be placed in the nest of a red-
start, which likewise lays blue eggs. In the British
Museum are such clutches of eggs, and also blue eggs
placed in the nest of a pied fly-catcher, the eggs of
which are also blue. The fact of the cuckoo produc-
ing a blue egg was for some time doubted in England,
though well known in Germany; but the question
was set at rest by two English ornithologists, Mr.

Blue Cuckoos’ Eggs. 67

Henry Seebohm and Mr. H. J. Elwes, who were col-
lecting together in Holland, and who received a nest
of redstart’s eggs, one of which, larger than the rest,
was said to be that of a cuckoo. The eggs proved to
be hard set with well formed young inside. They
were alike blue in colour, but in trying to blow the
larger egg, the foot of the little bird, a zygodactyle
foot, protruded from the whole, and effectually proved
that the tiny occupant was a veritable cuckoo.””*

And Dr. Bowdler Sharpe tells of the experience of
his friend, Mr. C. Bygrave Wharton, who discovered
a nest of the sedge warbler, with cuckoo’s eggs in it,
only distinguished from the true eggs by being larger ;
and some days afterwards he found an egg precisely
this same sedge-warbler type in the nest of a reed-
bunting, whose eggs are very different. This seemed
to show that the egg laid by the cuckoo was like that
of the sedge-warbler, and that on the first occasion
the cuckoo had found the matching nest ready to
hand, but, in the case of the second egg, no sedge
warbler in the neighbourhood had been found with a
nest ready, and so the cuckoo was forced to put it
into the nest of the reed-bunting.

But, unfortunately, as we think, Dr. Bowdler
Sharpe does not press forward certain facts that would
have still further strengthened his position here. On
another page we find him saying:

“In none of the hedge-sparrows’ nests have we a
blue cuckoo’s egg, and it is curious to find an egg like
that of a skylark or a tree-pipit deposited in the nest

*« The zygodactyle foot," as said already, simply means that
the bird has two toes to the front and two to the back—a point
in which but a limited group of birds any way resemble it.

68 Life History of Common Cuckoo.

of a warbler or chiff-chaff—the eggs of it are so
differently coloured that the sombre cuckoo’s egg lies
in striking contrast.” *

But, as I said already, in the British Museum, one
of the clutches has most distinctly a blue cuckoo’s
egg beside the accentor’s eggs, that of the cuckoo
being only noticeably larger ; and in another clutch
there a blue cuckoo’s egg lies beside the five blue
eggs of the redstart, here, too, only a little larger than
them, but in tint exactly matched. It is clear that
the intention of a blue egg is to be laid with blue
eggs; and if we could but definitely get at the causes
of the cuckoo’s power so to place it, we should be
some steps nearer to a true understanding of this bird.

Many instances we have now of blue cuckoos’ eggs
in nests of hedge-sparrow. Professor Newton writes:

‘* One was recorded in Zoologist, 1873 (p. 3526), on
Mr. Brine’s authority, and a few others have since
been recorded.” | We have heard of several quite
recently and ourselves found two in North - East
Essex the season before last and one last year so
alike in tint that only a slight excess in size betrayed
them: and there is Mr. Read’s specimen exhibited in
Mr. Bidwell’s exhibition.

* Handbook, ii, p. 28.

+ Dictionary of Birds, i, p. 121. (Now, this is not correct: Mr.
Brine, as we have seen, declared the finding of such several
times, and in the specific case referred to there were two cuckoos'
eggs—one as dark blue as the hedge-sparrow’s, the other lighter.
If Mr. Brine was to be believed about one, he should have been
believed about the rest, or else very distinct reasons given why
he was believed about the one and not about the others Dis-
crimination is good; but picking and choosing with birds are
sometimes not so good.]

Mr. Bidwell’s Results. 69

Mr. Bidwell has found the egg of the cuckoo in the
nest of the reed-warbler twenty-two or twenty-three
feet from the ground, and I have found it at even a
greater height in that of the jay and wood-pigeon.
Nor is this, according to Mr. Bidwell’s view, any
accidental or occasional case, since he holds that
cuckoos which lay eggs in nests high in trees come
of a class which always do so—a point in which I for
one am inclined to agree with him. These nests are
so removed from the examination of the ordinary boy
bird-nester that he is little likely to examine carefully
or exhaustively all such nests in a given area. In
this fact alone we have a suggestion of a much wider
deposition of cuckoos’ eggs than is usually conceived
—and this the more especially—and it needs to be
emphasized here if, as Mr. Bidwell holds, those cuc-
koos which deposit their eggs in such lofty nests will
always choose such nests if they are to be found
within their beat.

In the Zoologist for 1883 (pp. 372-3), Mr. Bidwell
contributed a very interesting note, telling how, in a
certain small area near his house at Richmond, he
had found, in different nests of the reed-warbler, four
cuckoo’s eggs so alike in their markings that no
ornithologist could doubt they were laid by the same
bird ; and he drew certain inferences from his facts:
(1) that the cuckoo does not always turn out one of
the victim’s eggs for her egg ; (2) that a cuckoo will
always use, if she can find it, the same class of nest
to lay her egg in; and (3) that the cuckoo does not
wander far if she can find fitting nests to put her
eggs in; and (4) that cuckoos that lay in high nests
will always prefer high nests, as in this case each

70 Life History of Common Cuckoo.

nest that had a cuckoo’s egg in it ‘‘ was high and had
to be climbed for;” and (5) that the number of
cuckoo’s eggs laid in a season is five. Mr. Bidwell
is very careful and exact usually, but here there are
a great number of mere assumptions: (1) the cuckoos’
eggs laid in low nests would be more exposed to many
enemies — bird-nesting boys and collectors, not to
speak of vermin; (2) he admits the possibility of
other grounds that he could examine being used by
the assumed identical cuckoo, and thus he has simply
to suppose certain things; and (3) after all, the iden-
tification of the one cuckoo is mere inference from
ege-markings and is an assumption—no more. I
should like to know if Mr. Bidwell pursued these
same investigations on that area, as I do not find any
record of them in the Zoologist for 1884; and if he
did, then, unfortunately, I have missed his report of
it, and would be glad to know his later specific results
in this little area; but, so far as this writing of his
goes, I do not regard either his assumed facts or his
inferences as so entirely convincing as he seems to
think them.

VIII.

Various theories have been advanced to account for
the origin of these habits in the cuckoo. It is a very
voracious feeder, and the food which it favours, hairy
caterpillars—more especially those of the tiger-moth
(Arctia caja), commonly known as the ‘‘ woolly bear,”
—has become so scarce very often, through woods
cut down and other changes, argue one set of natu-
ralists, that it would not be able to satisfy itself and

Another Mystery. 71

to provide for a brood also. The young of the cuckoo
are so voracious that it has been observed to be hard
work for a pair of foster-birds to satisfy the ravenous
maw of one. Indeed it has been set down as an
established fact that the young cuckoos struggle to
eject each other from the nest if put together, and the
stronger survives, but this is not yet sufficiently or
finally proved. Though there has been much exag-
geration about time between layings, the cuckoo, as
we have decidedly seen, does not deposit her eggs
quite so rapidly as some other birds. Whether this
slower deposition of eggs has been encouraged by
later habits, or was original to the bird, may well be
an open question; but in the former case you would
have a very marked departure from general habit ; in
the latter you have the survival of a species in face of
such drawbacks in its own habits and tendencies as
is at least exceptional almost beyond belief.

The whole question of the migration of the young
cuckoos later than the parents is one which also in-
volves something like mystery. Had they from
hatching lived along with their true parents, there
would not have been so much to wonder at in their
following them; but having been so far reared apart,
and having so far lived apart, their migration forms,
perhaps, one of the strongest illustrations of the
power of inherited instinct that we have.

Inherited instinct! Yes: if it were not that there
is so much to suggest that the cuckoos were originally
quite like other birds in all the points in which they
now so much differ from them. In truth, nothing is
more misleading than this word instinct.

Unlike most other birds, the female cuckoos are, as

yt Os I

72 Life History of Common Cuckoo.

already said, in a great minority compared with the
males; so that in a sense there is hardly true mating.
This is another fact of the most singular character ;
because, on one side, it suggests that some explana-
tion of the parasitic tendency in cuckoos may be
found in the comparatively low development of the
parts subservient to generation, the small eggs of some,
and a consequent weakening of the parental impulses ;
though this may be so far met by the fact that the
males clearly suffer in this respect more than the
females, and by this other and further fact, that some
of the parasitic cuckoos, the species of Coccystes
amongst them, still lay normally sized eggs.

We found the following description of the conduct
of the female cuckoo towards the males in one of the
best authorities :

‘“« It not infrequently occurs that three or four males
are in full chase of a female, who entices them on,
and grants her favours to one after the other as they
approach her; after which each male will return to
his own district. It appears also that not only does
the male return year after year to the samie locality,
but the female—though she wanders about in search
of various lovers when pairiny—seems to affect a
particular district, where she deposits her eggs in the
most suitable nests she can find.” *

But, if certain of the males thus return to their
own districts, it is out of the question that they can
attend on and aid the hen in the guarding of the nest
from the foster-parents when she is intruding her egg
and doing whatever is needful to secure its accept-
ance.

* Dresser's Birds, ad loc.

A Peculiar Point. 73
. IX.

HERE a very peculiar point arises regarding the
migration of the young cuckoos from this country.
Mr. Muirhead, in his Birds of Berwickshire, a truly
good and beautiful book, says:

“Tt is not likely that the young instinctively know
the route to be taken on migration, any more than a
young, untrained homing pigeon knows the direction
in which to fly to reach its cote, when it is conveyed
a long distance away from its native haunt.” *

And yet, in face of this, we know that the elder
cuckoos quit this country in large numbers in the
end of July, and certainly go in the earlier part of
August, consistently with the old rhyme:

“July, he may fly :
August, go he must."

Mr. Muirhead himself, at another place, says that
young cuckoos are common in Scotiand till the end
of August, and some have in different seasons been
found there in the beginning of September. They
certainly migrated, but the question is, if Mr. Muir-
head is right, how ?—if they had no intuitive notion
of the route—how? The old ones had all long gone,
and, if no intuitive notion of route—once again—how ?

The following paragraph appeared in the Daily
Chronicle, of Sep. 6th, 1898:

“ Tur Cuckoo In SEPTEMBER.—The Rev. Selwyn
C. Freer, High Ercall Vicarage, Wellington, Salop,
writes, under date Sept. 1 :—‘It may interest some
of your readers to know that a cuckoo was seen by

*i, p. 326.

74 Life History of Common Cuckoo.

myself to-day quite distinctly twice; the second time
at a distance of not more than twenty yards. It
must be rare that this early migrant is seen at so late
a date in the year.’”’

It raised so many questions and suggested so many
problems that I am thankful I was led to write to
Mr. Freer asking about it. In answer Mr. Freer was
so good as to write to me as follows:

High Ercall Vicarage,
Wellington,
Salop.
September 8, 1808.
My dear Sir,

I was pleased to hear from you. I have long been familiar
with your most interesting work on ‘' German Life and Litera-
ture,’ and have read some of your contributions to the Spectator.
I have talked with an old forester to-day—a man of about the
average intelligence, whose statements were quite decided, and
I think may be relied on for their limited range. He said the
cuckoo arrives here on April 16, generally, April 14 or 18 occa-
sionally, sometimes a little later than April 18, if there is a cold
stormy spring.

He said he had certuin/y never seen the old bird as late as
September 1. That on two or three occasions he had seen the
young cuckoo in October. Once, many years ago, when
working in a distant part of this parish, he had seen a young
cuckoo constantly which remained till ‘‘ nigh upo' Christmas.”’

He said that it was the opinion of some men about here that
the young birds did not leave at all, but he added that he had
also heard some men ‘‘argy’’ that in the spring they “ turned
into throstles !”’

Apart from this latter contribution to knowledge, may not
there be something in the statement that the young cuckoo
occasionally fails to migrate trom this country ?

May not the occasional very early appearance of the cuckoo
(my brother saw one this year in Somerset in February) be

Young Cuckoos not Migrating. 75

accounted for, xof by an unusually early arrival, but by the fact
that the supposed early visitor was a young bird who failed to
migrate at all in the previous autumn, and who survived a mild
winter in a sheltered neighbourhood ?

If this were so, it would seem to indicate a failure in instinct,
or an incipient variety in instinct, not destined to establish itself
under existing conditions, which would not be out of harmony
with the apparently somewhat unstable, or at least variable,
nature of the instinct of the cuckoo tribe.

I will try to find out anything more I can about the cuckoos
here, where they are exceptionally numerous, so far as my
observation goes.

If you can tell me of any point on which information would be
desired, I will try to investigate it.

With sincere desire to be of any service that lies in my power.

I remain,
Yours faithfully,
S.C. FREER.

P.S.—May I add that if you are ever in Salop it would bea
great pleasure to me if you could find your way to Ercall. I
have nothing indeed in the ornithological line, but have some
good American fossils, and a considerable collection of American
Indian antiquities, embracing amongst them some rare stone
implements, and other ethnological iota.

Mr. Freer’s suggestion that some of the young
cuckoos may wholly fail to migrate, is well worth
consideration, and has led me to put together possi-
bilities—in fact, to frame a kind of theory on the
matter. We know that, though the cuckoo prefers
for its eggs the nests of insectivorous birds, it never-
theless does occasionally—nay more frequently than
is believed, drop its eggs into nests of seed or fruit-
eating birds; and that with their feeding the young
cuckoos flourish equally well as with the strict insect
diet—another remarkable fact. This would do some-

76 Life History of Common Cuckoo.

thing towards forming a taste for seed or fruit or
berries, and in sheltered, protected corners, it is quite
possible that a very late young cuckoo, or a cuckoo
which had but imperfectly moulted the wing feathers
might pull through, following in the footsteps of our
own feathered residents.

In this, indeed, it would be but following closely
the example of the meadow-pipit and some other
birds it favours for foster parents, which, with nice
adaptability, have recourse to seeds, berries and fruits
in winter.

Even in the case of the accentor you have a bird
whose staple in summer and autumn is insects, but in
winter and spring it adopts an almost entirely seed or
berry diet.

The observation of out-of-door people, like Mr.
Freer’s forester, of young cuckoos “ nigh upo’ Christ-
mas” would be thus explained, and made, in fact,
consistent with a general principle, viz., that cuckoos
reared in nests of seed and berry eating birds, or,
indeed, of insect eaters, that become seed eaters in
winter might, more especially if imperfectly winged,
without any very rude shock to a former experience
in food, maintain themselves through the winter in
mild situations and in mild seasons. Of course, this
could not be the case with those bred of purely insecti-
vorous birds—the whole of the available life in that
line having been shut up. \Ve read in the Echo of
October 20, having missed the correspondence on
which it is based, the following :

“«Can the cuckoo be heard in October, as someone
at Bodington, in Dorsetshire, has recently claimed to
have heard it? A correspondent suggests that the

Cases Unexplained, 77

bird was a sparrow-hawk, a species that is sometimes
mistaken for the cuckoo.”

But in the case of a bird where the migratory in-
stinct is so strong, and in any case where this instinct
failed to act, some reason must be found in the ex-
ceptional physical condition of the bird which led it
to brave the rigours of winter here instead of to
attempt migration—some defect of wing feathers or
power of flight. The food element is in all such
questions a most important one.

This would account for what we are constantly
hearing of the cries of cuckoos at dates so early that
no ornithologist can believe that cuckoos had then
returned from migration. Other cases there are an-
alogous and at present wholly unexplained. There
is, for example, that of the corncrake, or landrail,
where, considering the defect of wing-strength, the
persistent migration is wonderful, and the instinct to
it is as powerful in view of its drawbacks as in any
bird; yet in many districts landrails remain and skulk
about here through the winter, and of this we know a
case the year before last in Essex.

PART JI.

FURTHER STRANGE TRAITS AND SOME
DEFINITE RESULTS.

Use of Imitative Element. 81
X.

Dr. BowpLer Suarpé tells a story which illustrates
well one use of the imitative element in the cuckoo.
The male bird is striped and barred in the breast and
is in head and expression very hawk-like—an aspect
he can emphasize by mode of flight, etc.

On one occasion a friend of his was desirous to
observe a whinchat which was busy in the process of
laying its eggs. The friend sat down in a protected
corner and remained perfectly still and quiet, and
what was his surprise very soon to see a female
cuckoo come near and hide herself in the long grass.
Then, in a very little time, the male cuckoo came and
flew round and round, putting on his most hawk-lixe
expression ; the whinchats were frightened and flew
off, the male cuckoo after them. This furnished a
fine opportunity for the female cuckoo to deposit her
egg in the nest of the whinchats which ere long re-
turned, of course, to do the needful, foolish little
simpletons, for the egg of the would-be hawk. Here
is a case, said Dr. Bowdler Sharpe, where the resem-
blance of the male cuckoo to the hawk was clearly of
use to it.

But more may be suggested by this than Dr.
Bowdler Sharpe intends or foresaw. All this was
scarcely needed, surely, to allow the hen-cuckoo to
drop into the nest an egg with her bill—the work of a
moment. But perhaps she had more todo. Mr. E.
Blyth believed that the canorus, when she deposited
her egg, did either destroy or turn out some of the
legitimate eggs of the nest, and he goes’on to say:

«From many experiments which I have tried, I

G

82 Further Facts and soine Results.

have found that, generally, in each case when a
strange egg is put into a nest before the owner of it
had begun to lay, that nest is deserted—if it be placed
along with the owner’s eggs, it is very commonly
ejected, but if substituted for the latter, then the
duped bird will lay other eggs to it and sit on all.” *

I am inclined to think there is much more in this
suggestion than has yet been realised. And my idea
is, in so far, not theoretic, but practical: I have twice
seen hen cuckoos flying away with shells or pieces of
shells from nests—one that of a pied wagtail, and the
other that of a robin redbreast, in each of which,
certainly, there was found, on looking, a cuckoo’s
egg. The bird had broken an egg in the nest, sucked
out the contents, and was carrying away the shell—
just as a bird would do in the ordinary course after
hatching, and as | have seen them do hundreds of
times. My idea is that from observing this arose the
idea that the cuckoos were egg-suckers, which, |
believe, they are—but only now-a-days under the
necessity of effecting the abstraction of an egg from
the nest to make a place for their own egg, and so
more perfectly dupe the victim. It is known now
that the cock cuckoo habitually assumes his most
hawk-like form, as Dr. Bowdler Sharpe by one case
has illustrated, to drive away all birds from about the
selected nest; this would be the more necessary if
more were needed than merely to drop an egg in from
the bill—the work only of an instant.

We have confirmatory evidence on this from a
good authority :

«Some observers state that the hen cuckoo always

* Asiatic Soc. Frl., 1842, p. 4.

Contests with Victims. 83

destroys one or more eggs of the foster-parent ; but
this seems only occasionally to be the case, and
more frequently when her egg is placed in an open
nest... . It has also, with justice, been accused of
devouring eggs, for my friend, Mr. Sachse, has seen
one do so. Even after her egg has been deposited, she
has been known to revisit the nest and destroy or throw
out eggs or young birds, never, however, her own.” *

With regard to contests of the cuckoos with vic-
timized birds, Mr. R. Swinhoe, in his Ornithology of
Hongkong, Macao, and Canton, thus describes one:

‘‘One I was watching (Cuculus orientalis) flew off
to another large tree, in which there was a magnal'’s
nest, and close to the nest a brown bird, much like
himself in form. The brown bird turned out to be
the female, and set up a chattering noise on the
arrival of her mate. She, very probably, had dropped,
or had come to drop, an egg into the nest, for the
magnal (Gracupia nigricollis) soon returned to the
tree, and, seeing strangers so near his abode, charged
them: the magnal, however, was defeated and driven
off, and the cuckoos remained victorious.” t

Mr. Swinhoe does not tell any more, which is un-
fortunate. Had he watched further, he might so far
have decided the point whether with this species
there was an attempt to destroy and take a magnal’s
egg from the nest.

Mr. J. H. Gurney quotes Mr. Norgate to this effect :

“June 4th, 1885. At about 3 p.m., my housemaid
told me she had just put her head out of the window
and saw a large slate-coloured bird, with a long tail,

* Dresser, v, ad loc.
tp. 46.

84 Further Facts and some Results.

flying from a pied wagtail’s nest, two or three feet
below her face, on a pear tree on the wall, and that
the bird had what looked like an egg in its bill, and
two small brown birds were flying at it. Her atten-
tion was first called to it by hearing a great noise and
fluttering. I at once climbed to the wagtail’s nest
and found one fresh cuckoo’s egg and one wagtail’s.
I am quite certain that cuckoos usually abstract one
or two (perhaps rarely more) of the foster-parents’
eggs in exchange for their own.”

A few years ago Colonel Butler found a green-
finch’s nest in his garden in the north of Suffolk, with
one egg in it, which he marked witha pencil. A day
or two afterwards the nest contained a cuckoo’s egg,
and the marked greenfinch’s egg was picked up on a
path a considerable distance from the nest; almost
certainly dropped there by the cuckoo.

Mr. J. H. Gurney also gives evidence sufficient to
prove that sometimes, at least, the old birds do remove
the true nestlings from the nest. This may be in
certain cases where the young cuckoo for various
reasons may have been unable to throw them out.

The late J. J. Briggs mentioned a circumstance
which would indirectly tend to establish this, if we
admit that, when the adult cuckoo throws the true
nestlings out of the nest, it would also naturally, at
the same time, try to guard its young from enemies.

The circumstance was this. When passing a cer-
tain point he saw a cuckoo strike down at his dog,
and try to dodge or entice it away from a certain
place. He found a young cuckoo was close by there
in the nest of a hedge-sparrow. Dr. J. B. Gray tells
us that he had seen a cuckoo, day after day, visiting

Mr. Rowley’s Observations. 85

the spot where its offspring was being reared. Mr.
Gurney also gives several cases where the eggs or
young birds of the foster-parents were ejected from
the nest on the very day on which the cuckoo was
hatched, and therefore not able to have done the
deed. Healso cites the authority of a gardener, who,
hidden in a pig sty, saw the old cuckoos carry off three
young ones from a hedge-sparrow’s nest. All this
goes to show that, in favourable cases, the old cuckoos
do the work themselves, thus assuring better feeding
for their young ones from the very start. But this
could not be invariably the case, simply because of
the position of certain nests into which the cuckoo’s
eggs have been dropped, but from which it was im-
possible that the cuckoo could have entered far enough
to extract even an egg for the one deposited, not to
speak of abstracting young, without tearing and
destroying the entrance of the nest; and this especi-
ally applies to the domed nests of wrens, and to some
other nests.

Professor Newton quotes Rowley, (Ibis 1865, p.
286) to the effect that traces of violence and of a
scuffle between the intruder and the owner of the
nest at the time of introducing the egg often appear,
whence we are led to suppose that the cuckow, or-
dinarily, when inserting her egg, excites the fury
(already stimulated by her hawk-like appearance) of
the owners of the nest, by turning out one or more of
the eggs that may be already laid therein, and thus
induces the dupe to brood all the more readily and
more strongly what is left to her.* Mr. Rowley
dwells merely on turning out the eggs: if so, we

* Dictionary of Birds, i, p. 121.

86 Further Facts and some Results.

believe that that is alternative to sucking them and
taking out the shells.

[Professor Newton uniformly spells the word
cuckow—we follow in extracts from his writings.]

We do wish Professor Newton had in Encyclopedia
Brittanica given a few references to such works, for
example, as Mr. Blyth’s ‘* Monograph on the Cuckoo,”
in the Asiatic Society Fournal, to Mr. Jerdon’s section
on Cuckoos in his Birds of India, and to such things
as Captain Shelley’s work on the Cuculide.

Mr. Emerson tells of several reliable fishermen in
the Norfolk Broads, who affirmed to him solemnly
that they had caught Mr. Cuckoo sucking duck’s eggs,
mavis’s eggs, thrushes’ eggs and even reed-bunting’s
eggs; and Mr. Emerson adds that, in cuckoo’s crops
he has found a yellowish substance that he can not
but regard as egg, and adds, ‘“‘I believe cuckoos do
suck eggs as do most predatory birds.” *

On another page, Mr. Emerson says, ‘though I
never caught him in the act, I have found eggs
sucked that were whole before the cuckoo hopped
about them.t .... The marshmen say they often
hear the cuckoo talking to the titlarks and sedge-
warblers, the birds answering them, and then, they
say, they are on the look-out to suck their eggs and
lay their own in the nest.”

Mr. J. H. Gurney cites the evidence of Mr. H. L.
Wilson who, in the spring of 1880, at Powick, near
Worcester, took the remains of eggs out of a cuckoo’s
crop, judged to be robins’ and hedge-sparrows’.

Mr. Wilson wrote in the Field, January 28, 1882:

* Birds of the Norfolk Broadland, p. 162.
+ Birds of the Norfolk Broadland, p. 163.

Young Cuckoo's Dress. 87

“On skinning it (the cuckoo) I found its crop was
full of a mash of eggshells. I carefully examined this
mash and succeeded in separating the broken shells
(held together partly by the inside skin) of at least
seven eggs, two of which were robins, and the rest
either hedge sparrows’ or thrushes’, or some bluish
eges.”

And Mr. Gurney avows himself a believer in occa-
sional egg-eating cuckoos.

The great spotted cuckoos also eat eggs, as shells
have over and over again been found in their stomach.*

Thus we reach some definite results. The cuckoo
destroys some of the eggs of the birds in whose nests it
places its own—sometimes it sucks them in the nest,
and carries out the shell in its beak: sometimes it
eats part of the shell and carries out the rest ; some-
times it eats the egg absolutely, shell and all.

Another point: It would perhaps be rather strange
to the foster-birds if the young cuckoo had anything
like his true cuckoo feathers at first, which would be
something very different in aspect from that of their
own true progeny. But the young cuckoo does not
get his true feathers till before migration; and so
long as he remains in the foster-parents’ nest or under
their protection, his feathers are dull and dark, almost
black—another very peculiar point about the bird.

And these distinguishing marks in plumage main-
tain themselves, though not to the same extent, en-
tirely through the first season. Lord Lilford wrote:

“The difference of plumage between adults and
birds of the year is so singular and noticeable that
more than one writer on ornithology has treated of

* Ibis, 1862, p. 358.

88 Further Facts and some-Results.

the latter as a distinct species; for this reason, and
because the adult has been more frequently figured
than the young bird, I have given the prominent
place on the plate to a bird of the year. The young
of the cuckoo differs much in plumage from the old
bird, being dove-brown, barred with reddish brown.”

Here is the report of another observer:

‘‘ During the pairing time, the cuckoo acts in a
very headstrong, jealous, and wild manner. He gets
into a dreadful rage when another of the same species
dares to invade his territory. And yet he is a Simple
Simon all the while. He will come blindly to the call
of the sportsman, who understands how to imitate his
note. Sitting on a branch, with raised tail and ruffled
head-feathers, he cries ‘ cuckoo’ as if in defiance to
all the world—of birds, at any rate.

‘ While flying he will often glide slowly in front of
his mate and tell his passion with a low ‘ crawawa,’
to which the latter answers, ‘ kwikurkurk,’ etc., with
great rapidity, a cry savouring more of laughter, or a
chuckle, than a favourable response to his affectionate
invitation. When both are at the height of their
courtship, the one cries ‘cuckookook cuckookook,’
while the other laughs and chuckles. After the
breeding season is over, both sexes are silent. It is
possible that in many cases the cuckoo is content
with one mate; yet, the males being in excess, this
is hardly possible either; and that each male should
in turn court all the females alike, which might in
certain cases justify this unbounded jealousy.”

The call of the cuckoo, it may be added, is a true
song, that is, a music made for the mate, and the
changes it undergoes in the season are only further

Dr. Dybowski's Facts. 89

proof of this. As to jealousy of the male, that is
explained by later observation already referred to
that hens are in the minority, and the rule must be
not polygamy, but polyandry.

The Rev. Charles Alfred Smith, in the Zoologist
for April, 1873, threw great doubt on the point
whether the young cuckoo does invariably throw the
birds of the foster-parents out of the nest, and he
also raised questions on other points. As he wrote
from personal observation in every case, his remarks
may claim regard. Though he did not dispute the
facts of the young of the foster-parents being thrown
out of the nest, he endeavoured to cast the blame for
this on the elder cuckoos, and quoted foreign obser-
vers, though it needs always to be remembered that
foreign families of cuckoos may, in quite different
circumstances, act quite differently from what ours
do, as indeed the American cuckoos are, in several
points, very different. In confirmation of his own
views, he cited the experience of Dr. Dybowski, given
in the Yournal ftir Ornithologie, to the following
effect :

«With the theory that the newly-hatched cuckoo
turns the young of its foster-mother, either mechan-
ically or involuntarily, out of the nest, I cannot
declare myself to coincide, since I have facts to pro-
duce which tend to quite different conclusions. For
we found in an uninhabited valley near the river
Alengui, in Dauria, a nest of Anthus ricardi. It was
inserted in a depression at the foot of a rather large
heap of earth, whose surface up above projected over
the nest on all sides to a considerable extent. In this
nest there was only a young, still quite unfledged

go Further Facts and some Results.

cuckoo, and not more than from two or three days
could have elapsed since it had crept forth from the
the egg.

“« Not far from the nest two young pipits were lying,
which were certainly still alive, though extremely
feeble ; and, a little further off, a similar young bird,
already dead. As we took the little birds in our
hands, it was apparent that their crops were full, and
their stomachs also well filled. Nevertheless, the
poor things were so exceedingly cold that they gave
hardly any distmguishable signs of life.

‘‘ Now the question arises, what could be the reason
of this (at all events, to say the least of it,) invol-
untary abiding of the above-named young birds out-
side their nest? The young cuckoo certainly could
not have caused it, as he was still much too young
for such a task; the young pipits themselves could
not have got out of the nest, because it lay much too
deep down for them to have done so. There remains
only the theory that the parents (either those of the
pipits, or those of the cuckoo) must have done the
deed. Of the pipits, there can surely be no question ;
indeed, in my opinion, in the case before us, one can
lay the blame solely and entirely on the cuckoo, and, '
indeed, on the female bird.

“ Again: not far from Darasun, where several
cuckoos had been killed a short time before, we
found, in the month of June, in a nest witha young
cuckoo, a young pipit, nearly full grown. The young
cuckoo could not yet leave the nest, nor did he even
know how to make his escape out of it, to get away
from us; so he sat still in his place, and hissed at us;
whilst the young pipit could already run, and was

Damaged Nests. gl

just preparing to slip out of the nest away from us.
In this case it must be assumed that there was none
near at the proper time who could cast out the young
pipit.

“‘ Again: in one and the same nest we found two
cuckoo’s eggs, the colouring of which entirely dif-
fered, the one from the other.

“ Again: in a nest of Phyllopneuste fuscata we
found a cuckoo’s egg, green-speckled black, like that
of Uragus sibiricus, which (as is well known) will
not receive the egg of the cuckoo, but will rather
destroy the nest, and remove its materials; but near
the aforesaid nest lay the eggs of the Phyllopneuste,
of a pure white colour.

‘“Again: we often found damaged nests, some
even torn asunder ; the eggs of which were not eaten,
for they for the most part lay around, at a little
distance from the nests, broken.

‘The above facts, as well as many other cases,
cause us to express the following opinions upon the
cuckoo :

‘‘(a). The female cuckoo deposits her eggs in the
nests of other birds; she does not cast out the eggs
of those birds intentionally, and if this should some-
times happen it ought to be considered as done by acci-
dent. [This is a big assumption, and must be felt to
be so, when we have in view what has been said on
the subject of substitution of eggs.]}

“©(b). Every female cuckoo has her own district,
and certain chosen nests, in which to lay her eggs.
If she sees that another female cuckoo comes near
this district, then she pursues it, and drives it away :
but if the other female cuckoo is able to slip into

g2 Further Facts and some Results.

such a district without being seen, then it may well
come to pass that two cuckoo’s eggs may be laid in
one and the same nest.

‘“‘(c), With the spoiling of the nests and the scat-
tering of the eggs we must not charge the female, but
in every case the male cuckoos, which probably adopt
these means to force their mates to a prolongation of
the pairing time. (Verlangerung der Paarungszeit.)

*(d). After hatching, the female cuckoo turns the
young of her nurse out of the nest, in order to secure
a more certain existence for her own offspring.”

It should be noted that at this time the reports of
observations of Mrs. Blackburn and Mr. Hancock
were not yet published, or, at all events, well known;
and, it should be emphatically repeated, that cuckoos
in different climates and latitudes may and do act
quite differently; though with these commentaries,
Mr. C. Smith’s carefully observed facts and his infer-
ences, as well as the facts cited from Dr. Dybowski,
may well be modified and fall into range exactly.

A writer in Science Gossip a short time ago raised
an important question in the following passage :

‘“‘] was one evening, about seven o’clock (it was
almost midsummer) searching for the nest of a grass-
hopper warbler, whose note I had heard in a certain
field on several successive evenings. While thus en-
gaged, I saw a cuckoo, followed by a grey wagtail,
flying over a neighbouring wood. After a few
minutes the wagtail returned, and I went in that
direction, but failed to find her nest. On the follow-
ing evening I was again engaged seeking the grass-
hopper warbler’s nest, and I again saw the cuckoo
pursued by the wagtail.

Anxious about Young ? 93

‘*Once more I sought for the wagtail’s nest, and
again failed. I would fain ascertain for a fact whether
or not the custom of the cuckoo is to visit its eggs and
young periodically, and if so, how often.

‘‘T knew that it was said the physical conformation
of the cuckoo incapacitates it from the work of incuba-
tion, and that, consequently, its maternal instinct
teaches it to deposit its eggs to be hatched in the nest
of other birds. According to my idea, it would seem
a painful blot on the cuckoo if it did not feel anxious
for the welfare of its young, and manifest its watchful-
ness and care by frequent visits. I would much
rather believe that the cuckoo pays daily visits to its
eggs and young; and when they are all fledged,
gathers them, though reared in different homes, into
one family, and then takes them, under its fostering
care, to distant lands.”

This we know well now the cuckoo does not do.
When this observer wrote it was not so well estab-
lished as it is now that the parent cuckoos migrate
weeks before the young birds—mainly, no doubt,
because of facts connected with moulting.

We have seen that Mr. J. E. Gray is firm in his
conviction, based on observations of his own, that the
cuckoo does not uniformly desert her offspring, but on
the contrary, continues in the precincts where the
eggs are deposited, and, in all probability, takes the
young under her protection when they are sufficiently
fledged to leave the nest. If, however, the cuckoo
lays four or five eggs, or even more, this would be
difficult—far more difficult than with some of the
foreign varieties, which lay the whole lot in one nest.

From the evidence of close observers and expert

O4+ Further Facts and some Results.

ornithologists like Mr. Hancock and Mr. R. P. Harper,
there is some ground for thinking that the young
cuckoos when they take the wing are sometimes fed
by the old ones. Whether each young one is recog-
nised by its own true parents, or whether the atten-
tion is merely one of kind to kind is a question on
which at present no decisive judgment can be given,
as there is really no data to justify such a decision one
way or another.

A very keen discussion on the habits of the cuckoo
took place in the Zoologist for 1873, in the course of
which Mr. G. B. Corbin wrote:

« As a lover and student of the feathered tribes, I
may be allowed to offer my small item of experience
with regard to the above question. The two nests in
which I have most frequently found a cuckoo’s egg
are the hedge-sparrow and meadow-pipit, more com-
monly the latter. I have at different times taken
scores of nests of the red-backed shrike, but on no
occasion have I found a cuckoo’s egg in them ; neither
have I ever seen a cuckoo’s egg bearing the least
approach to the blue of the eggs of the hedge-sparrow
and redstart.

‘* Some two or three seasons ago I noticed that
whenever I passed along a particular hedge-bank in
the meadows, a cuckoo was always to be seen some-
where in its vicinity, so I concluded that an egg had
been deposited not far off. JI searched the herbage
very closely, and at last found what had been so
attractive to this summer-loving bird, viz., a nest of
the blackheaded-bunting, containing a cuckoo’s egg
and five of the rightful owner's. Four of the bunting’s
eggs were of the usual colour and markings, but the

Blue Cuckoos’ Eggs. 95

other was white, with a single small dark spot upon
it. As they lay in the nest, I thought they were
rather a motley group. On another occasion I found
a meadow-pipit’s nest, containing six of its own eggs
and one of the cuckoo. My limited experience would
point to the fact that cuckoo’s eggs are less variable
than many other species as to colour and marking,
unless indeed their colour is so variable that they are
often confounded with the species amongst which they
are laid,* for, as a birds’-nesting schoolboy, I was
often surprised at the abundance of the cuckoos com-
pared with the number of their eggs found in a
season ; and provided each female lays more than one
egg, which, I believe, is the case, the proportion
seems still greater, as the birds always appeared to
be ten to one against the eggs. Probably an unskilful
way of finding the egg is the chief cause of such
apparent disparity, but I have noticed that the parent
cuckoo generally loiters about the spot where her egg
is deposited, unless she has a circuit—spots in which
she visits at intervals—and thus becomes a kind of
overseer of her scattered brood. I never found more
than one cuckoo’s egg in the same nest, nor is 1t often
that nests containing a cuckoo’s egg are placed very
near to each other.

‘Why do we often see small birds mobbing a
cuckoo? Is it love or fear that prompts the per-
formance, as these smaller birds in like manner tease
rooks and hawks? That the cuckoo introduces her

=A thing rendered probable by Mr. Corbin’s never having
met with a blue cuckoo’s egg. It does, indeed, require a quick
eye to detect it among those of the hedge-sparrow, as, not
seldom, they differ only a little in size.

96 Further Facts and some Results.

egg into the nest with her bill is, I think, unques-
tionable, as the pipit’s nest before adverted to was in
such a situation, under a large tuft of heather, that
no cuckoo could possibly have laid in it, and I found
the nest by the mere chance of seeing the pipit come
out, after nearly treading upon it.”

I have given these records mainly because the
writers in certain respects proceed without prepos-
session, and may influence later writers, and when
thus regarded their observations are the more valu-
able when we adjust and set them in line.

It is proved by my own experience, as well as that
of several others, that two cuckoos’ eggs are some-
times to be found in one nest : sometimes more nearly
like each other, sometimes very different. Here, on
this point, is the experience of a correspondent of
The Field, under date June, 1894:

“Two cuckoos’ eggs in one nest.—While strolling
over Ashtead Common, in Surrey, Saturday, I noticed
a hedge-sparrow dart hurriedly out of a gorse bush a
few feet away, and on looking into the bush I found
her nest, which contained three of her own eggs, and
two of those of the cuckoo. I believe it a rare oc-
currence to find two eggs of this bird in the same
nest. The eggs were totally unlike each other; one
being much larger and of a lighter colour, while
both were slightly set. This locality seems to bea
favourite resort of this bird, for on the same after-
noon I heard at least a dozen different cuckoos calling
from various directions at the same time.—W’. R.
Pope.”

And to this the Editor of The Field himself gave
the following note :

Two in One Nest. 97

‘“‘In the chapter on the cuckoo in Our Summer
Migrants, it is remarked (p. 230) that two cuckoos’
eggs of a different colour have been found in the
same nest. If both were laid by one bird, then we
have proof that the same cuckoo does not always lay
eggs of the same colour; if laid by different birds,
then the cuckoo is not so impressionable as has been
supposed. The full bearing of these remarks will be
better understood by referring to the context, which
is too long to be here quoted.” *

* Field, June 2, 1894.

PART Ill.

MR. DARWIN AND MR. ROMANES
DEALT WITH.

“ Inconveniently Long.” IOI

XI,

Mr. Darwin found the cuckoo one of the most diffi-
cult creatures he had to tackle—to explain and to
reconcile the phenomena it presents with his theories
of evolution and natural selection. In fact, the great
master there just wrote a little nonsense, and, though

‘a little nonsense now and then is relished by
the wisest men,”

we could not relish it from Darwin, who had as little
of fun about him as he had, as he himself confessed,
of poetry. He wrote, in the remarkable 8th chapter
of the Origin of Species, 6th edition, as follows:

“Tt is now commonly admitted that the more im-
mediate cause of the cuckoo’s instinct is that she lays
her eggs, not daily, but at intervals of two or three
days, so that if she were to make her own nest, and
sit upon her own eggs, those first laid would have to
be left for some time unincubated, or there would be
eggs and young birds of different ages in the same nest.
If this were the case, the process of laying and hatch-
ing might be inconveniently long, more especially as
she has to migrate at a very early period, and the first
hatched young would probably have to be fed by the
male alone.” (Italics in the two places are mine.)

In answer to this proposition it has been very well
written :

‘‘ Might it not just as reasonably be said that the
parasitic instinct is the more immediate and final
cause of her laying her eggs at long intervals?”

And Mr. Darwin thus proceeds :

102 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

‘‘ Let us suppose that the ancient progenitor of our
European cuckoo had the habits of the American
cuckoo, and that she occasionally laid an egg in
another bird’s nest. If the old bird profited by this
occasional habit through being enabled to migrate
earlier or through any other cause; or if the young
were made more vigorous by advantage taken of the
mistaken instinct of another species than when reared
by their own mother, encumbered, as she could hardly
fail to be, by having eggs and young of different ages
at the same time, then the old birds or the fostered
young would gain an advantage. And analogy would
lead us to believe that the young thus reared would
be apt to follow, by inheritance, the occasional and
aberrant habit of their mother, and in their turn
would be apt to lay their eggs in other birds’ nests,
and thus be more successful in rearing their young.
By a continued process of this nature, I believe that
the strange instinct of our cuckoo has been gener-
ated.” (pp. 212-213.)

By the way, so many ‘“‘ may be’s”’ and “‘ would be
apts’ do not seem to us quite so scientific as might
be. Again specially note the words I have put in
italics.

Mistaken instinct! How can an instinct, in the
sense here too obviously meant, be mistaken? It is,
in view of its own intention, unerring, a fact which
Dr. A. Russel Wallace has duly recognised, and has
to fall back on failure of reasoning power. Either
this or the word “instinct” has really no proper
meaning. To nurse and feed an intruded alien to
the detriment of the creature’s own young is surely
against instinct, and is to be accounted for by some-

‘* Mistaken Instinct !” 103

thing else. But “ mistaken instinct” is a contradic-
tion in terms under any true definition of instinct
that we can think of. Mistaken here only means lack
of instinct and failure of reason which is not able to
make up for its absence. Yet we have cases of Birds,
as, for example, the reed-warbler we have told of,
that twice, not being able to turn out the intruded
eggs, built them over and removed them from the in-
fluence of the heat of its own body necessary to hatch
them. Here, surely, instinct and reason worked to-
gether to one end: not so in the cases Mr. Darwin
includes under ‘‘ mistaken instinct.”

To Von Hartmann’s definition of instinct, that it
is action taken in pursuance of an end, but without
conscious perception of what the ‘end is,” Mr.
Romanes supplies the rider, that it is the uniformity
of instinctive action as performed by different indi-
viduals of the same species. As in all such cases of
definition, you find assumptions contradicted by what
are meant to be qualifying clauses. Thus, even Von
Hartmann’s ‘action taken in pursuance of an end”’ is
reason which he thus maladroitly qualifies by “ with-
out conscious perception of what the end is.’”’ But how
can an end be pursued without more or less conscious
seeing what itis? And Mr. Romanes then comes in
with a rider, in regard to which we would ask, is the
tendency of the members of the cuckoo tribe to in-
cubate an instinct, or is it not? And in that case,
what is it, seeing that his ‘‘ uniformity” of instinctive
action, as performed by different individuals of the
same species, will not here hold? And all this points
to a more general question still. How are these
gentlemen to define strictly and consistently these

104 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

“occasional habits,” out of which Mr. Darwin—to
us rather illogically, and surely inadvertently—says
that instincts are developed with co-operation—be it
noted—of time and chance. Are these ‘ occasional
habits” instincts, or what are they? If they are got
purely out of occasional habits; then certainly your
effect is greater than your cause, and so far outside it.
And at what point, pray, does the ‘‘ occasional habit”
become an instinct ?

NIL.

THERE is no such absolute uniformity in the case of
other birds, as against the cuckoo, in hatching eggs
simultaneously, as Mr. Darwin founds on here. In-
deed, there is no such thing as absolutely simul-
taneous hatching of eggs. It would be very trying
and troublesome to the female bird, if it were so: for
she has a duty to the shell—to clear it away; anda
duty to the young bird—to dry and clean it. And,
transparently, it would be disadvantageous, if, while
she dried and cleaned one—three, four, five, six, or
even seven others were lying wet and cold, waiting
her attentions. I say then, firstly, and from observa-
tions alike of tame birds—canaries, linnets, and others
bred by me—and of wild birds, that, to a greater or
lesser degree, birds of different ages are invariably in
the same nest, and the first hatched young are in the
multitude of cases fed by the male alone, or by the
female receiving the food from the male and really
giving it to the young without leaving the nest—
the wonderful accommodation of the digestive organs
during incubation enabling her to do this for long,

Egg-Shells brought out. 105

long periods without more than rising from the
nest, to stand on the edge of it. Why, in my
own case I have had birds that slipped till the
second and even, once, till the third day between
the eggs in laying, and the youngest of the brood
was nigh three days younger than the next to it,
and seven days younger than the eldest of the
brood. And in this lies, indeed, a great aid to
the parent birds in the feeding—most anxious time
when the young birds scarce can fly steady and
yet will leave the nest —in that when the first
fledged birds will go out, the younger one or two
will still lie contentedly in the nest, dividing the
attention needed and lessening the care and labour.
But for this arrangement very few birds could survive.
I have over and over again seen two and even three
eggs almost or partially covered by the birds only a
day or two from the eggs—the warmth of their little
bodies no doubt assisting the female greatly in hatch-
ing them. Every sitting bird, as the eggs are
hatched, brings out in her bill, as with a kind of
triumph, the pieces of the egg-shell, which most care-
fully she carries to some distance (cunning thing!)
before she drops them, as, if she merely threw them
out of the nest, they might to some enemies mark
clearly her nesting place. My birds uniformly carried
the pieces of the shell to the farthest corners of the
room and there, after a moment or two, dropped
them—never near the cages in which the nests were
—and this in the cases of canaries and other birds.
It would not do for all the eggs to hatch absolutely at
once were it for nothing more than this (to some,
perhaps, apparently rather unimportant reason),

106 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

which, however, it is not. It would take the female
too long from the nest at once to carry out ten or a
dozen pieces of egg-shell. Some birds come much
nearer to simultaneous hatching than others; but,
simultaneous hatching in the absolute sense is not
existent.

Why, Mr. James S. Gould, in My Canary Book,
following Buffon and Bechstein, writes :

‘* All you need to do is, when the nest is finished,
to open the side door of the nest-box quietly, and
ascertain when the first egg is laid. Do not touch it
on any account. Never use ivory eggs, one by one,
to replace the eggs until they are all laid. Let
Nature alone. The birds ought not to be all hatched
at one time.”

And Buffon long ago gave the reason: ‘“ The plan
of removing the eggs so as to have them all hatched
at once is unnatural and bad because it causes the
mother a greater loss of heat, and burdens her at
once with five or six little ones, which coming together
disturb rather than please her ; whilst in seeing them
hatched successively one after the other her pleasure
is increased and her strength and courage better
supported.”

And this, even in cases where the male assists the
female in brooding. Again, in a large number of
cases, it is very well known how strict the cock is in
hunting the hen back to the nest, and this more
especially after the first of the eggs have been
hatched, as though the very sight of the breathing
living things added greatly to his jealousy of the nest
and watchful care of it.

As regards intervals between layings, several of

Not well based. 107

the owls lay their eggs at intervals quite as long as
the cuckoo, or even longer than the cuckoo, according
to Darwin, and the owlets first hatched help to hatch
the other eggs. This indeed is done, as just said, in
all cases of birds more or less. Further, the cuckoo’s
stay in this country is no briefer than that of some
of the swallows or the exquisite little garden-warbler,
yet the swallows and the garden-warbler contrive
easily to bring off a brood and sometimes even two
broods. Thus (and there are yet other arguments
which would take us into too technical matters) Mr.
Darwin's explanations are not well based, in some
points seem even ignorant, and in certain respects
explain nothing but his own limitedness and utter
lack of power to grasp the difficulties that he per-
ceives and wrongly fancies that he at least partially
meets and explains away. The difficulties remain
after all his efforts have been made.

Further, we may make bold to ask, what is so very
out of the way in expecting this of the cuckoo, when
the blackcap, which comes later than the cuckoo, and
has a nest to build and courting besides to do, in
which he is indeed a proficient, has eggs in the earlier
half of May? Dr. Bowdler Sharpe says that he has
found hard-set eggs of the blackcap as early as the
12th of May.” *

Even the night-jar, with but two eggs, does not for
this reason hatch them both absolutely at once. We
have found the little young one for all the world like
a tuft of fur torn from a rabbit’s breast, and left
almost imperceptibly wavering there in a slight gust
of wind beside the other egg; and this is true also

* Allen’s Handbook of Birds, ad loc.

108 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

of the American species as told us by Nuttall and
Burroughs, and by Thoreau, whose wonderfully-
graphic description may here be given:

“There was one egg still, and by the side of it a
little pinch of down fluttered out and was not ob-
served at first. More than a foot down the hill had
rolled half the shell it had come out of.”

Where, I would ask, was the other half? Thoreau’s
eye would not have missed it had it been there. May
be the mother had just then gone off with it thirty or
forty yards at least and had not got back for the
second half when Thoreau came along too near. The
inside of the egg, you see, was not protectively
coloured like the outside, and would have told her
secret too clearly. That mother night-jar or night-
hawk would not forget that—believe me !

‘“« There was no callowness as in the young of most
birds,” Thoreau goes on. ‘It seemed a singular
place for a young bird to begin its life, this little
pinch of down, and hie still on the exact spot where
the egg lay—a flat, exposed shelf on the side of a
bare hill, with nothing but the whole heavens, the
broad universe above it, to brood it when its mother
was away.”

But she was not far away, nor would be away for
long. The second half of the egg shell would go
after the next short sitting on the egg to keep it
warm.

The Broken Egg-Shells. 10g

XIII.

Darwin himself well points out that “it is sur-
prising instinct should lead small nesting birds to
remove their broken eggs—(it should surely have
been egg shells)—and the early mutings; whereas
with partridges, the young of which immediately
follow their parents, the broken eggs—(it should
surely have been egg shells), are left round the nest.”
More often they are left in it, or a portion of them.
The protection of the partridge, which nests on
the ground, or very close to it, lies in the power
of her brood to run, if disturbed, even on being
hatched; the partridge at once leading the young
ones to protective holes, and under cover of hedge
bottoms, etc., so that the removal of broken egg
shells is not particularly necessary, considering other
protective points; but it is of importance—of the
utmost importance—to nestlings which are unfledged
and cannot move from the nest for many days: and
I think it one of the most extraordinary things that
Mr. Darwin never seems to have in the least con-
nected this remarkable fact with the necessity, in the
small birds, of non-simultaneity of hatching.*

Major Bendire has this passage in one of his able
articles : ‘It is said” (Origin of Species, chap. viii),
‘‘that the American cuckoo lays at long intervals,
and has eggs and young at the same time in its nest,
a circumstance manifestly disadvantageous. Of the
Coccyzus melanocoryphus, I can say that it never
begins to incubate till the full complement of eggs

* Romanes’ Mental Evolution, appendix, p. 379.

110 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

are laid; that its young are hatched simultaneously.
But if it is right to trace the origin of the European
cuckoo’s instinct in the nesting habits of the American
coccyzus, it might be attributed, not to the aberrant
habit of perhaps a single species, but to another more
disadvantageous habit common to the entire genus—
their habit of building exceedingly frail platform
nests, from which the eggs and young very frequently
fall.” *

Major Bendire’s remark about simultar{@ty of young
hatched—if we admit the correctness of his observa-
tion—is not conclusive against our position, nor does
it really touch it. What we hold is, that absolute
simultaneity does not exist in any strict sense; that
in any case there is only the more or less close ap-
proach to it. Eggs vary in size, in thickness of shell,
etc., just as much as to provide the margin we claim.
Besides, Major Bendire here founds, not on one of
the more common species, but on one which he does
not even treat of—at all events, under this name—in
his Smithsonian volume, where he distinctly says of
the yellow-billed cuckoo, that as to incubation there
is no absolute rule. Sometimes it does not begin till
laying is done, and in other cases incubation is begun
when the first egg is laid.}| But the Major’s argu-
ment against Darwin is conclusive.

Further still, with regard to intervals between the
laying of eggs, there is in no species whatever the
uniformity which Mr. Darwin seems to found on here.
Sudden frost and cold will completely stop egg laying.
Once in the case of starlings, which I could observe

* Smithson Report, 1893, p. 610.
tp. 23.

Intervals between Layings. III

from a dormer attic window, four days, owing to cold
and frost passed between the third and the fourth;
and Mr. Robert Read, a most reliable authority,
assures us that he once found a blackbird’s nest at
Blackheath, very early in the spring, in which the
bird had laid a single egg. A spell of frost and snow
supervened, and no more eggs were deposited for a
fortnight, when mild weather once more set in and
two more eggs were laid precisely similar to the first
and evidently by the same bird. There are certain
general rules about this point connected with species
of birds, but the exceptions are the most interesting
in all cases to observe and study ; leading to the idea
of resource, adaptation and contrivances manifold,
so that there is in no case the absolutely assured
uniformity Mr. Darwinassumes. All this Mr. Darwin
would on his principle here, in ornithology, wipe out
—a strange thing for him to do: for here, in this very
bird, we have, perhaps, the most remarkable hints of
his own favourite evolution and natural selection!
Truly the race is not always to the swift, nor the
battle to the strong, nor even the power in the case of
great observers to see the point. Vhis much in our
own favour.

Mr. Darwin in the sixth edition of the Origin of
Species also, rather maladroitly says:

“IT have lately heard from Dr. Merrell, of Iowa,
that he once found in Illinois a young cuckoo together
with a young jay in the nest of a blue jay (Garrulus
cristatus); and as both were nearly fully feathered,
there could be no mistake in their identification.”

Here the fact of the two young birds of different
species together has a significance as to differentiation
at which he does not even glance.

112 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

Indeed, fron’ my own observations, in conjunction
with those of Mr. Hancock, as given respecting the
young cuckoo turning out its foster-brothers from the
nest, | am convinced that the non-simultaneity of
hatching is one of the circumstances that tend to give
the young cuckoo much of his power: he has a
chance at once against eggs and young ones,.and it is
clear that he is keen to work upon both, so long as is
necessary, by his restlessness, making it impossible
for the foster-bird to hatch out the second half of the
eggs, which he inclines first of all to dispose of, as
was notably the case in regard to the nest observed
by Mr. Hancock. Absolute simultaneity of hatching,
that is, practically, four young birds at one moment
to deal with, in place of one or two, would present
difficulties—at least the business would be, on all
natural considerations, rendered longer, more hazar-
dous and hard.

One fact, which was not only before Mr. Darwin,
but specially dwelt on by him, might have led him to
revise his whole passage relative to the cuckoo in
eighth chapter of Origin of Species had he been any-
thing of a thinker, which he was not. This fact was
the stay of young cuckoos in our country up to the
month of September. It might surely have struck
Mr. Darwin that if the young ones could stay, the old
ones surely could. It did not strike him to ask any
question in connection with that, therefore we say he
was not a thinker. It seems to have struck another
writer with great force:

‘The cuckoo’s early migration can hardly be part
of the cause, it is rather a correlated effect. The
cuckoo leaves us early because its parental instincts

A Suggestive Question. 113

or duties are not strong enough to detain it. The
young cuckoos do themselves remain until compara-
tively late in the year (September), or until they
are strong enough to undertake their flight. What
cuckoos of the first year could do, the same birds in
their second and subsequent years could surely do
also.” *

If the adult cuckoos leave this country because of
the failure of food supply—it being said often that
they leave this country just when the majority of the
summer caterpillars assume the imago stage —the
question may well be asked, how do the young birds
fare when the larger supply of their natural food is
cut off? Is there a provision in this case for making
up for this defect by adapting themselves to other
food; and if they do so, why cannot the adults do the
same? This question is, indeed, a very suggestive
one—that the young cuckoo’s foster-feeding has pre-
pared it for this adaptability, whereas that of the
adult has not; but then there is the further considera-
tion and question: why is this adaptability limited
only to birds of the year, and why should they in
such a matter linger so long behind the old birds;
and, more than all this, why, when they stay in our
country so late as end of September and even into
October, they should go at all on such a long and
perilous journey over lines they have never traced
before, when they can adapt themselves to what is
properly winter-feeding, and when in various portions
of the country there are mild and protected portions,
where the cold could not injure them if fair supplies
of food were to be had?

* Dr. Creighton’s Fenner and Vaccination, p. 14.

II4 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

Mr. Darwin, in the first portion of passage noted,
does no more than merely condense the remarks and
reasonings of Jenner; and in a matter so very ex-
ceptional and peculiar we really should have expected
something very different from him. For it is all too
clear that Jenner, having got, as he fancied, on toa
‘“‘ good thing,” could not refrain from endeavouring to
go one better than the facts, and to explain them con-
formably with a foregone theory. Mr. Darwin was
cute enough in dealing with that same tendency some-
times, and severe enough in condemning it; so that
here indeed we find something to wonder at in his
very meek acceptance of all that Jenner said. To
gain his end, Jenner, after laying it down that the
adult cuckoos—coming about the middle of April—
do not lay until about the middle of May, certainly
gives full time for accidents; for, as the bird builds
no nest, what has it got to wait a month for before
beginning the main business for which it came here?
Mr. and Mrs. Cuckoo are too much “persons of
business’’ for that! Cuckoos’ eggs have in many
years been found in nests in the very beginning of
May. It is then, indeed, that the hedge-sparrow is
most imposed upon; which may well have led to the
idea that it is more often the victim than it really is;
whereas the meadow-pipits, pied fly-catchers, the
wagtails, the warblers and wrens are most duped
afterwards. Another and very good reason for this
is that the hedge-sparrow, (Accentor modularis) is
one of the very earliest builders—its nest being found
finished often as early as March. It is laying eggs
often in that month, and, therefore, the cuckoo loses
the chance of depositing among the first clutch.

Fenner both right and wrong. 115

But the second is what in many cases will come just
to suit it about the beginning of May. Jenner would
give the cuckoo a fortnight for sitting and hatching
the eggs, and three weeks in nest for young ones
before they fly, and then he would give the young
cuckoos five or six weeks to be fed after they fly.
And he asserts that the cuckoos quit this country in
the first week of July; which is not correct—they
go later, often not till August—verifying the old saw:

“July, he may fly,
August, go he must."

Dr. Bowdler Sharpe is much nearer the mark when
he says (‘‘ Birds,” Allen’s Naturalist’s Library ii, p. 25),
“leaving about the end of July; ’ for adult cuckoos in
sheltered situations in mild seasons are often seen in
the earlier days of August.

By this kind of process you could prove or establish
anything ; but Jenner, though he was so far right in
his observations, got wrong the moment he took up a
theory as other clever men have done, and was deter-
mined to make everything bend to his plausible ex-
planations.

Though it is true, as Cuvier says, that the young
cuckoos are ‘exceedingly slow in learning to take
their own food,” yet, five or six weeks, taken up in
feeding the young cuckoos after they fly is too much,
you would by that have such a disturbance of the
breeding process in all victimised birds as would
indeed be very marked and revolutionising. Sparrows,
pipits and others which have three and sometimes
four broods a year would have only one brood or at
most two; and the long drawn out periods of feeding

116 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

the flying cuckoos would cause such a complete
departure from the instinct towards a new brood that
I for one believe that the young cuckoos would after
all be left to their fate. For this instinct is one of the
most imperative of all instincts; and I do not believe
that in such circumstances the motive would be strong
enough to cause it to be so absolutely departed from
in this special case. Eckermann, in talking with
Goethe, saw this, but scarcely realised the whole
result of what he allowed in his own mind.

There is, besides the best reasons for believing that
in cases—very rare cases, when the cuckoo itself
broods its young, the young can forage for themselves
in three weeks, while, under care of the foster-parents,
they need five or six weeks. This is a point that I
do not remember having seen any attempt whatever
to explain; yet it is so peculiar that it demands
investigation.

Then, in view of the propagation of species and
the securing of the desired end by the most direct
possible process, does it not seem a sad defect in
nature’s contrivance that she has not made the young
cuckoos quick and ready to learn how to find their
own food. The chicks of the mound-building birds,
after having forced their way through some feet of
mould and dust, run into the thick forest and can at
once provide for themselves. This seems all right
under the ordinary rule of natural selection and sur-
vival of the fittest ; but if these laws are here illus-
trated by the chicks from the mounds, they certainly
are not so, in the extraordinary time the young
cuckoos remain practically helpless, dependent on
others absolutely, when they should be self-support-

ing.

Romanes follows suit. 117

And, notwithstanding the extraordinary reputation
accorded to Mr. Darwin, for patient observation and
persistence, and his independence of all authority,
here we find him, implicitly followed, too, by Mr.
Romanes, most meekly accepting Jenner’s endeav-
ours to force the facts to fit his theory ; and neither
one nor the other of our great geniuses of evolution
think for a moment of waiting a year or two, and
quietly going to look for themselves. No, they prefer
to accept Jenner’s version, and to theorise, and dog-
matise, and say ‘it may be,” and “ probably it was,”
etc., etc., instead of using their much vaunted observ-
ing faculties, and just for a little while going to look
and see for themselves.

Just compare all this Jennerised theory and argu-
ment about the cuckoo, both on Mr. Darwin's and
Mr. Romanes'’ parts, with the excellent result of ob-
servations close and careful of Mr. Romanes and his
sister on the Cebus, in Animal Intelligence, pp. 484—
498, where due and careful observation of the creature
was directly and patiently made; though, of course,
one disadvantage is still involved in observation under
such circumstances, that the creature is isolated and
in artificial conditions. But you cannot bring a
cuckoo into your house, and get it to live with you,
as you can do with the Cebus, and therein lies the
mighty difference,—just as certain deer the artist can
get into his studio, and can there paint from them;
but others, that he sometimes very much wants to
paint, he cannot get brought to him in this way, and
hence some of the most notable blunders.*

*See Lord Southesk’s Britain's Art Paradise, which contains
a list of some natural history errors in Academy exhibitions.

118 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

XIV.

IF slight change of external conditions could have
such effects as Mr. Darwin has described in chap. xii,
Domestication, in the case of the Aylesbury Ducks,
which in a different part of England lost their habit
of early laying, to lay exactly at the same time as the
common ducks do there, does this not suggest that
more weight should be laid on possible changes in
external conditions in wild birds and other wild crea-
tures, and certain possibilities of birds of different
families, if not of different species, under similar
conditions, coming to act similarly even under very
unexpected lines?

Mr. Darwin’s own argument, at p. 43, vol. ii, of
Domestication, surely in full force applies here. He
says:

‘There are some breeds of fowls which are called
‘Everlasting layers,’ because they have lost the
instinct of incubation ; and so rare is it for them to
incubate that I have seen notices published in works
on poultry, when hens of such breeds have taken to
sit. Yet the aboriginal species was, of course, a good
incubator; for with birds in a state of nature hardly
any instinct is so strongas this ... lI[raised several
chickens from a Polish hen by a Spanish cock—
breeds which do not incubate—and none of the young
hens at first recovered their instinct, and this
appeared to afford a well-marked exception to the
foregoing rule; but one of these hens, the only one
which was preserved, in the third year sat well on her
eggs and reared a brood of chickens. So that here

One General Law. 11g

we have the appearance with advancing age of a
primitive instinct in the same manner as we have seen
that the red plumage of the Gallus bankiva is some-
times re-acquired by crossed and purely bred fowls of
various kinds as they grow old.”

Here Mr. Darwin speaks of certain breeds of hens
recovering their instinct for brooding: if they re-
covered an instinct which they had lost, is it logical or
legitimate to speak of them as acting on an instinct by
persistent laying? If the one was in the true sense an
instinct which was, as he says, recovered, then the
other practice was not due to instinct, but to some-
thing else. This is exactly on all fours with the
cuckoos which over and over again have in his sense
recovered the instinct of brooding by sitting on eggs,
and these departed from what he says elsewhere is
developed out of ‘occasional habits.” There is no
escape from this. They cannot both be true and
primary instincts.

Mr. Darwin is here dealing with modifications due
directly to man’s intervention. Dr. Russel Wallace,
with his own characteristic clearness, has given
warning that nothing can be more unsafe than to
argue from such instances to wild-nature, yet surely
one general law may be assumed as here controlling
both. If certain birds under the direct manipulation
of man, and for his own purposes, lose a certain
‘primitive instinct,” and one of the strongest, may
we not assume in the case of a wild bird, that it has
lost its strong instinct of the same character from the
same or similar general causes, that certain changes,
certain influences arose upon it at a certain period,
broadly corresponding to those that we find can be

120 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

brought about by man and operate on creatures
under man’s control and manipulated by him.

The great question with regard to the cuckoo and
its utter loss of the brooding instinct is this—what
were the changes or influences which, at a certain
definite time, led it to abandon its brooding propen-
sity ?—its former habit of brooding being, as we saw
already, proved even now occasionally by reversions
to this very habit, and, unlike the tame fowls, it has
to seek otherwise an attainable means of securing the
same end. The tame fowls did not do this; appar-
ently leaving it to man whom they better served by
“ everlasting laying” to look to this, only wonderfully
attesting this original instinct by in middle life or age
reverting to primary habit; while the cuckoos having
no man-manipulator to trust to, have themselves to
look out for some way to secure the same end. The
grand question which Mr. Darwin does not at all
face or even try to face is, what in the case of the
cuckoo were these changed conditions or influences ?
There must have been such—whether we can in any
way trace them or not, conditions and influences in
which general operations of men may have had a
share, nay, must have had a share, since, nothing is
more clear than that no step—not the slightest,
towards ‘‘improving’ the land, etc., etc.—can be
taken without effects far-reaching on certain classes
of creatures.

Now, in the case of the cuckoo more definitely
than perhaps anywhere else, you can trace out the
process by which a latent element of reason, giving
rise to very marked invention and resource in that
bird, has come in to enable it so far to meet and make

Mr. Romanes's Test. 121

up for the changes it could not otherwise resist or
subdue. Instead of itself brooding, as assuredly it
once did, it contrived to make others do the brooding
for it, and, what is yet more, it also managed so to
impress on its young the necessity for a certain kind
of action in order to its own well-being and sus-
tenance. I do not say whether this is, in the terms
of Romanes, simple reflex action, or otherwise—the
fact—the necessity of certain actions in throwing out
the birds of the foster-parents from the nest is there,
and most powerfully strong and availing, and all the
more significant that it does not stand alone, but is
part of a whole crowd of changes and modifications,
all agreeing to secure one grand result.

Mr. Romanes puts down as the prevailing test the
following :

“Does the organism learn to make new adjust-
ments, or to modify old ones, in accordance with the
results of its own individual experience? If it does
so, the fact cannot be due to mere reflex action in the
sense above described ; for it is impossible that here-
dity can have provided in advance for innovations
upon, or alternations of its machinery during the life-
time of a particular individual.”

This points, though it was not meant to do so,
exactly to our difficulty as regards actions of the
young cuckoo, thoroughly opposed to its proper and
earlier instincts.

But even these exceedingly able men, by their very
aptness in thinking, sometimes bring out in painful
prominence their lack of special knowledge or obser-
vation in which they ought to be pre-eminently strong.

Here is a proof, from quite another point, of what

122 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

Isay. At p. 298, Animal Intelligence, Mr. Romanes
writes:

“The goat-sucker, when its west is disturbed, re-
moves its eggs to another place ; the male and female
both transporting eggs in their beaks.” Now, from
this would it not appear that the goat-sucker is a
nest-builder and a layer of many eggs? One of the
leading peculiarities about it is that it builds no nest,
therefore its nest cannot be disturbed. It never lays
more than two eggs, and often only one ; so that Mr.
Romanes’ picture, set so close to the procedure of the
partridge, which may have as many as twenty eggs
to remove, is very out of joint, and misleading as to
the bird’s ways; and his words about male and female
transporting eggs in their beaks is a gross inaccuracy
and exaggeration, and something worse—worse surely
in regard to many cases, where the female bird lays
but one egg. But Mr. Romanes, quite unconsciously,
as it would appear, corrects one of his own errors at
p- 292, when he writes that “the stone-curlew and
goat-sucker deposit their eggs on the bare soil,”’ which,
as regards the goat-sucker, is not quite correct either,
for as often as not the egg or eggs.is laid simply on
dried grass or fern at the foot of a tree; and round
about Coldharbour, near Leith Hill, at Mosses’ Wood,
and elsewhere, where night-jars abound, we have
more often found it so than on the bare soil; but,
assuredly, it makes no nest.*

*And who corrected Mr. Romanes’ proofs? Surely he did
not do so himself, for scientific names of birds are awfully
blundered—instance, Melothrus canariensis instead of Molothrus
bonariensis, for one, and Modothrus badius becomes Melothrus
cadius for another!

“Animal Intelligence!” 123

Mr. Darwin and Mr. Romanes, for one thing, might
have done far more for the science they loved so well
had they devoted almost half-a-year at the proper
season to the study of the cuckoo and nothing else,
not forgetting the problem of the young cuckoos left
behind, to stay on at least a month after the old
cuckoos have migrated—one of the most wonderful
things about the species—and, taken along with some
other things, makes them wholly unique; and yet on
this point, as well as on some others, neither of these
great authorities says a single word, though they both
close as though once for all they had settled the
whole mystery of the cuckoo and left nothing unmet.
Evolution, as they lay it down, is taken to exhaust
the whole thing—to us, even after evolution has done
its very best in their able hands, the mysteries not
only remain, but are increased. To increase the
mystery about a very familiar bird is not, surely, the
true end of science—evolutionist science !

In Animal Intelligence, p. 307, Mr. Romanes quotes
the first part of the passage we have given from the
Origin of Species on the cuckoo, and he actually adds
a note to the passage thus:

‘* Allusion is here made to the fact that the cuckoo
lays her eggs at intervals of two or three days, and,
therefore, that if all were incubated by the mother,
they would hatch out at different times—a state of
things which actually obtains in the case of the
American cuckoo, whose nest contains eggs and young
at the same time.”

As though this were such an exceptional fact in
bird-history as to justify this wonderful note. Both
Mr. Darwin and Mr. Romanes unfortunately (as we

124 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

have said already) accepted almost implicitly Jennet’s
statements and explanations. From my own obser-
vations and those of several others, 1 am doubtful if
cuckoos do not lay a greater number of eggs than is
generally supposed, and, in a general way, at inter-
vals of two days at most; this is nothing extraor-
dinary, and certainly it is extraordinary to learn that
any bird is fed by the parents or foster-parents for
five or six weeks after it flew.*
Dr. Rey, the great German oologist, to whom we
have already referred, quoted by Dr. Bowdler Sharpe
(Allen's Naturalist’s Library, “Cuckoo,”) declares that
.cuckoos lay as many as twenty or twenty-one eggs,
‘and within intervals of each other much shorter than
is generally believed. Dr. Bowdler Sharpe puts a
mark of exclamation at this, which, no doubt, is
meant to undo the effect of his quoting it, and yet if
it was deserving only of silent discredit, was it really
worth his while in using up his valuable space with it?
Mr. Gurney agrees that the cuckoo lays a much
greater number of eggs than is usually believed.
Colonel Irby tells us that ‘a female (cuckoo), shot

*« The American cuckoo ”’ (it should be cuckoos) ‘' being well
known to build its nest and rear its young in the ordinary
manner’ (Romanes’s Animal Intelligence, p. 301). And ‘that
the small size of the egg is a real case of adaptation in order to
deceive the small birds (in whose nest it is laid), we may infer
from the fact of the non-parasitic American cuckoo laying full-
sized eggs.’ (p. 306.) All which is wrong for the inference
cannot be drawn unless blindly—the American cuckoos—the
two commoner American ones—being largely parasitic, and de-
positing their eggs in the nests of larger birds than our cuckoo,
as is the case with the Egyptian cuckoo and the Indian koel;
so that the imaginary fact here based on can give no reason for
parasitism at all.

Col. Butler's Early Egg. 125

in the second week in May, had then two eggs re-
maining in the ovaries, nearly ready to lay. Verner
found, on the 25th June, 1879, near Gibraltar, a
cuckoo’s egg in a wood-warbler’s nest.” *

Colonel Butler wrote to the Zoologist from Brat-
tingham Park, Suffolk, the following, which appears
in that magazine in 1895, p. 229:

“On May 25, I found, on the ivy over a potting-
shed in my garden here, a robin’s nest containing a
young cuckoo about a week old, so that the egg from
which it was hatched must have been laid quite at
the beginning of May; and I also heard of another
bird in the neighbourhood rather older, so that the
egg in that instance must have been laid earlier still.
The young bird in my garden was discovered by my
noticing four young robins—only just hatched: in
fact, one was still in the broken shell—lying on the
ground below the nest. On looking into the nest
to ascertain the cause, I found a young cuckoo in
possession ; he must have turned his companions out,
therefore, almost as soon as he was hatched.”

XV.

Now, how does this bear on the question before
us? If the cuckoo begins to lay in the very early
part of May, which there are the very best reasons
for believing she does (for I have found eggs then),
and goes on laying, she must at the least lay eggs till
the 25th of June, as the Gibraltar cuckoos do, and
even later, as some instances testify that our cuckoos

* Ornithology of Straits af Gibraltar, p. 135.

126 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

do. It is easy to be seen that, as no brooding comes
in to interrupt the laying, she must at the least lay a
dozen eggs, and that is allowing a good deal more
than four days between each of them. If the de-
mands of migration would, in our country, make it
impossible that she should rear and feed, after fledg-
ing, the young from an egg still in the nest on 25th
of June, this certainly cannot apply to the eggs laid
up to the second week of May and before it.

A point for Dr. Charles Creighton: if our cuckoos
go on laying eggs up to anything like the date given
here for Gibraltar (and I have proof that they do it
in record of my own observations), then that would
allow nearly, if not quite, a fortnight for observation
after the date he sets down with such decision for
Jenner, and, from my own experience, a good deal
can be observed in a fortnight by one who can devote
all, or almost all, his time to a special purpose, and
has some scientific curiosity, determination, and
patience to lie or to stand still for hours.

All Mr. John Hancock's observations of young
cuckoo turning out eggs and young of hedge-sparrow
were within a fortnight—nay, really within a week;
while Mr. John Craig’s yet more remarkable and
fruitful observations and experiments, resulting in a
whole series of valuable and unique snapshots, de-
scribed in the preface, were really accomplished in
eight days in the case of one nest, and in the case of
the other, within a week.

And this position of mine is certainly confirmed by
Mr. J. H. Gurney’s words:

“The latest egg I have found was on June 28th,
but Colonel Butler tells me of a fresh egg in a yellow-

Shell of Cuckoo's Egg. 127

hammer’s nest on July 3rd, and of a young cuckoo
unable to fly on the 28th July last.”

Further yet : Mr. Rowley (Ibis, 1865, pp. 178-9)
says that, from personal observation, he believes the
period of laying to begin in the beginning of May
and to go on at least to the middle of July, he having
taken eggs of the cuckoo’s as late as on the 29th of that
month.

In certain seasons, in certain parts from which the
cuckoos migrate early—that is, in the latter part of
July—it is, of course, impossible that, in the case of
eggs laid so late as to show young cuckoos only a
short time before the 28th July, and eggs taken from
nests on the 2gth, the elder cuckoos should be able to
do the service of removing the companion foster-
parents’ eggs, and, still more, the young ones, after
their hatching, which generally follows that of the
cuckoo—the cuckoo’s eggs, like the eggs of the
American molothrus or cow-bird, as we shall see
afterwards in the proper place, needing shorter in-
cubation by some days than those of the victimised
birds—another most remarkable fact in the economy
of the bird, more especially considering the thickness,
and hardness, and heaviness of shell of the cuckoo’s
egg. The cuckoo’s egg, indeed, contains the shell
matter requisite for an egg the normal size of the
bird, and the contents are, so to say, concentrated.*

And here arises another question. Many of those
who wish—following Jenner—to shorten the period of
the cuckoo’s sojourn here as much as they possibly can,
in order to gain one point in their favour, have also
to show how in this case the young foster-birds are

* Miller's Essays and Nature Studies, p. 59.

128 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

thrown out of the nest. This point will recur in a
later section. Another difficulty. These young birds
that are still to come out of eggs yet unhatched a few
days before the 28th of July, most distinctly cannot
enjoy the long period of five or six weeks feeding by
the foster parent, after they fly, because that would
carry them far beyond their date of migration—
middle of September: that is, allowing ten days for
brooding, twenty in nest before flying, and between
five and six weeks for being fed after they are able
to fly. Two months and a half would bring them,
at the latest, into the middle of October. Either,
then, they migrate at the proper time—middle of
September, at latest—or they do not migrate at all,
and remain all the winter in this country—which is it ?

Dr. Bowdler Sharpe makes this record about the
American cuckoos :

‘‘ There seems to be even with this well-behaved
parent (!!) the same difference in time between the
deposition of the eggs as is to be found in the case of
Cuculus canorus. Audubon relates that he found a
nest in which were five young cuckoos and two eggs.
Two of the young birds were sufficiently advanced
to scramble out of the nest, and the other three were
of different ages—one being just hatched, another
several days old, and the third still further advanced,
covered with ‘*‘pen”’ feathers, so that it would have
been able to fly in about a week. His friend, Mr.
Rhett, in whose garden the nest was found, assured
him that he had known as many as eleven young
cuckoos to be reared in a nest in the course of one
season.”

Mr. Blyth gives, fortunately, a longer account of

Mr. Rhett’s Case. 129

the nests at Mr. J. F. Rhett’s house, near Charles-
town, in South Carolina, direct from the words of the
persons there :

‘“« Two young cuckoos, nearly ready to fly, scrambled
off from their tenement among the branches of the
tree, and were caught by us, after a while. The nest
was taken and carefully handed to me. It still con-
tained three young cuckoos, all of different sizes, the
smallest apparently just hatched, the next in size
probably several days old, while the largest, covered
with pen-feathers, would have been able to leave the
nest in about a week. There were also in the nest
two eggs, one containing a chick, the other fresh or
lately laid. The two young birds which escaped from
the nest, clung so firmly to the branches by their feet,
that our attempts to dislodge them were of no avail,
and we were obliged to reach them with the hand.
On now looking at all these young birds, our surprise
was indeed great, as no two of them were of the
same size, which clearly showed that they had been
hatched at different periods, and I should have sup-
posed the largest to have been fully three weeks
older than any of the rest. Mr. Rhett assured us,
that he had observed the same in another nest...
and that eleven young cuckoos had been reared in it
in one season, young birds and eggs being in it
together for many weeks in succession.

“On thinking this over,”’ the account proceeds, “I
have felt most anxious to discover how many eggs the
cuckoo of Europe drops in one season. If it, as I
suspect, produces, like the American bird, not fewer
than eight or ten, or what may be called the amount
of two broods in a season, this circumstance would

K

130 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

connect the two species in a still more intimate
manner than theoretical writers have supposed them
to be allied.” *

Then Mr. Blyth refers to domestic pigeons as
wanting to lay again before the former brood are
quite ready to leave the nest : in no case of birds that
I have set up to breed has this not frequently been
the case: canaries especially wishing to turn the
young brood out of the nest to lay in it again.

Mr. Blyth, after having referred to the migratory
instinct of the common British swifts being so strong
that they will sometimes leave later broods to starve,
asks whether the instances referred to by Mr. Audubon
of eggs of the American piayas being found in other
bird’s nests happened at a late period of the season.
This is a most important point, and if it has not
already been answered by American ornithologists, I
hope that it soon will be, to enable us to compare
more satisfactorily these American piayas with our
Canorus.

Now, in view of all these facts, is it likely—the
least likely—that our cuckoos, which had passed
through long processes of change and differentiation,
at length involving the complete dependence on others
for brooding the eggs, and much consequent risk and
loss, would cease, in view of the preservation of the
species, to produce so many eggs as it had done in
the days when it was like its American congeners in
the points wherein it now differs from them? If the
preservation of the species is the one great end of the
breeding process, then it is clear that certain of the
modifications very gradually effected on the cuckoo

* Quoted by E. Blyth, Asiatic Soc. F1., 1842, pp. 1206-7.
Q y P

A Clever Reed-Warbler. 131

were not in the line of the preservation, not to speak
of the increase of the species.

And here indeed arises a whole set of facts of the
most interesting and suggestive character.

The reed-warbler’s nest has an incurved rim, and
is, compared with most other nests, very deep; so
that, as the nest, attached to reeds or stems of sedges,
and other water-plants sways about much in the
wind, the eggs or young ones can’t be thrown out.
I myself three years ago found in north-east Essex a
nest of the reed-wren from which the young ones had
flown, and noticed that it was very irregular looking
at the bottom, I put in my finger, and was surprised
to find it at one side very hard, and pulling off the
lining of moss, grass, hair, etc., nicely felted, there
was a cuckoo’s egg lying cold, buried, in fact. The
wren had, for the reason given above, been unable to
eject the egg, and had simply built it over, putting,
in fact, a second bottom into the nest, and as she had
to do this, be it remembered with eggs of her own in
it, she could not make it so regular as the true bottom
below, which I now beheld, all smooth and neatly
finished.

On mentioning this to my friend, Mrs. Perrin, her-
self a naturalist, and exquisite painter of our native
wild flowers, she told me that some time before she
had seen in one of the illustrated magazines (American,
she thought), a drawing, showing how the same in-
genious little bird had dealt with intruded cuckoo’s
eggs, which it, too, had been smart enough to detect,
but could not turn out. The clever little creature
had manged to separate the cuckoo’s egg from its
own, and put over it a layer of small leaves, and

132 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

moss, and hair; and then, a second cuckoo’s egg
being dropped in, it repeated the exact process—the
little nest thus becoming, really, a house of three
irregular stories—two containing the unborn dead,
and the upper a nursery of the living. I can abso-
lutely trust Mrs. Perrin’s accuracy in report; and
should be exceedingly pleased if any one who remem-
bers the drawing or photograph in the magazine
would be so good as to send me, through the pub-
lisher, the reference for it.*

Mr. Emerson, in his Birds of the Norfolk Broad-
lands, says that he has never found a cuckoo’s egg in
a reed-warbler’s nest, though he has often found it
in the sedge-warbler’s nest. This is not at all in
agreement with the experience of ornithologists else-
where—Mr. Bidwell’s list gave 62 reed-warblers, out
of g09 eggs—and certainly not with my own. But
even as regards the district with which Mr. Emerson is
connected, the fact leads one to ask a question: what
can be the reason—the reason, mark you, of such
nice distinction between nests of reed-warbler and
sedge-warbler over the district of the Broads. Have

* The reed-warbler builds its exquisite hung-nest on sedge or
reed-stems, etc., generally ; but sometimes it will take a fancy
to build in a willow or even a thorn or alder tree not far froma
lake or marsh, or even in a gooseberry or currant bush—not too
far from water. Mr. Emerson, in Birds of the Norfolk Broad-
lands, gives a photograph of a reed-wren’s nest in situ in a
black-currant bush, but this seems shallower than most of its
nests resting on reed-stems, depth not being there so much
needed as in the reed-stems, which would sway more to the
wind. But how did the little creature come to know this? I
have noticed that nests in willow and other nests are not so
deep either as those hung on reed-stems.

Mr. Emerson and Mr. Steveison. 133

the cuckoos there discovered that the reed-wren has
found them out, and will build over any alien eggs
deposited in their nests? There must be some
reason, whether we can find it out or not, for the
aversion the Norfolk Broad district cuckoos have
come to have, apparently, to the reed-wren’s nest.
Mr. Bidwell’s exhibition list told certainly a very,
very different story, as to general procedure.

Mr. Emerson's rule cannot, however, apply to any
portion of Norfolk, save strictly ‘“‘the Broad-land ;”
for we find Mr. J. H. Gurney writing: “It would
not be hard to find several marshy places in Norfolk
where cuckoos rather abound, and often lay their
eggs in reed-warblers’ nests.” And the general fact
is borne out by Mr. H. Stevenson, who, in his Birds
of Norfolk, gave an account of finding reed-warbler’s
nests in bushes or shrubs (laurels, etc.) near to water.

He wrote:

‘““The most curious fact in connection with these
five reed-warblers’ nests, built into shrubs or bushes
at the foot of a garden near the water’s edge, was the
finding a cuckoo’s egg in three of them, and a young
cuckoo, of course per se, in the fourth.* Occasionally,
but rarely, I have known a cuckoo’s egg deposited in
the nest of this species when placed as usual among
the reeds; but, in the above four instances, increased
size and width and easiness of access afforded, no
doubt, peculiar attractions.”

And again, at i, p. 387, Mr. Stevenson writes :

“It is somewhat singular that the latter (the nest
of reed-warbler), although perhaps the most frequently

*i, p. 117.

134 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

used of all, should be almost invariably omitted from
our published lists.”

Mr. Norgate has made one very remarkable dis-
covery, which is cited by Mr. Gurney in his paper.
He has noticed in reed-warblers’ nests, where cuckoos’
eggs were laid, cuckoos’ feathers woven into the out-
side and bottom of the nest; and his notion is that
these are put there by the cuckoos themselves to
accustom the reed-warblers to the smell, as they have
not been met with in other nests. This would indi-
cate that particular methods and expedients have to
be resorted to by the cuckoos in the case of the reed-
warblers.

Mr. Gurney’s own explanation of the undoubted
tendency of some cuckoos, in certain circumstances,
to hang about nests has a bearing here. He thinks
that this is done more especially when the egg has
not been properly matched. One case, he cites, was
that of a reddish egg in the nest of a reed-warbler ;
and there the cuckoo ‘was close at hand, perhaps
from a consciousness of the wrong colour, which
rendered her anxious.”

And he has this further reflection on this matter :

“Tf the foster-bird is not quite happy with the
splendid usurping egg, which she is deluded into the
belief that she herself has laid, she will perhaps move
it from one side of the nest to the other, and, if there
is reason to think it unfertile, ultimately bury it in
the lining of the nest, rejected. In June, 1879, Mr.
Norgate saw a cuckoo’s egg, in Hockering Wood, on
the ground beside a tree-pipit’s nest, which egg had
some hours before been seen to be in the nest; and

Robin and Cuckoo's Egg. 135

there are similar evidences by other observers, show-
ing the disposition above mentioned.” *

‘« That year,” writes Mr. W. J.C. Miller, late Regis-
trar to the General Medical Council. ‘it happened
that a pair of robins had built a nest in a box in our
garden, and had there laid two eggs. But on looking
in one morning, I saw a similar egg, though a little
bit larger, lying close beside the other two. Up to
that time, I had only seen a cuckoo’s egg when laid
beside the ‘eggs of heavenly blue’ of the hedge-
sparrow, where it was clearly to be recognised. And
the hole in the box was much too small for a cuckoo
ever to get through. This, however, was a cuckoo’s
egg, which must have been brought and placed there
by the cuckoo’s beak. It would have been interesting
to note the hatching of the young cuckoo, and watch
its behaviour towards its nest mates; but whether
the robins had ever been deceived or not I cannot
say ; anyhow they forsook this nest and went off and
built and reared their brood in another box.” +

In this case, it may be inferred that the cuckoo,
which could manage to introduce an egg here could
not manage to take one out, and so the little robins
declined to have the extra egg and deserted the nest
—another instance of cuckoo’s egg rejected by a
small bird.

* Trans. Norfolk and Norwich Nat. His. Soc., p. 369.
+ Essays and Nature Studies, p. 26.

136 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

XVI.

THE analogy with America here is strong. Several
of the American birds will not receive the cuckoo’s
eggs. One of them is Bullock’s oriole: she rids her-
self of the cuckoo's egg by at once throwing it out,
and not resting till she has done so.

Another observation of Mr. Gurney’s, faithfully re-
corded, suggests yet further and more indirect means
of promoting their own chances for foster-parents on
the part of cuckoos.

He writes :

“On the 2oth of May, 1897, my son and I were in
the pursuit of swallow-tailed butterflies on Sutton
Broad, when three cuckoos passed me, one behind the
other, probably a hen and two cocks. After flying
over a small bog-myrtle or sweet gale bush, not more
than two. feet high and six feet long, standing by
itself on the fen, they betook themselves to an adjoin-
ing field. In three or four minutes my suspicion was
aroused by one cuckoo returning, which, not heeding
me, entered the bush where it remained, but though
drawing near very cautiously, I could not see it there,
small asit was. When at length the cuckoo had gone,
a minute search revealed nothing, and we were just
going away, when some ten feet from the bush, the
marshman nearly trod on a new yellow wagtail’s nest
inthegrass. It wasempty, but scattered round were
five young wagtails, quite a week old, the furthest one
six feet off, the others nearer, no doubt dropped
where we now saw them by the cuckoos. I can only
come to the conclusion that this was a cuckoo which

DESTROYING YOUNG |

OF

es STS ti

Cue

wl

American Cowbirds. 137

had a predilection for yellow wagtails’ nests,* and as
nothing else would suit it, its motive in this instance
was, by removing the young wagtails, to incite their
bereaved parents quietly to build a new nest, and
again lay eggs beside which the crafty cuckoo might
deposit her own. It may be when my binoculars
were on the bush was just the time when the cuckoo
happened to be searching to see if this had been done.

‘*Tt is true there are stoats on the marsh, but the
dead nestlings showed no marks of teeth. Their re-
lative position, and that of the nest and bush, can
best be shown by a sketch, and, accordingly, the
accompanying drawing has been made from my recol-
lections of this rural tragedy in bird life by our well-
known draughtsman, Mr. Keulemans.”

Our ‘‘accompanying drawing” is here presented
by kind favour of Mr. Gurney.

This above noted conduct of the reed - warbler
would seem to be exactly on all-fours with the pro-
cedure of some of the species on which Molothrus
bonariensis (the cow-bird of North America, the
Argentine and elsewhere) is parasitical. Some species,
however, though they do not throw the parasitical
eges out, which would seem the simplest plan, have
discovered how to get rid of them, and so save them-
selves the labour of making a fresh nest. Their
method is to add a new deep lining, under which the
strange eggs are buried out of sight and give no more
trouble.

“ The Sisopygis icterophrys—a common tyrant-bird
in Buenos Ayres—frequently has recourse to this ex-

* Mr. Bird found a cuckoo’s egg in a yellow wagtail’s nest
near Suttton, May 23, 1890.

138 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

pedient ; and the nest it makes being rather shallow,
the layer of fresh material, under which the. strange
eges are buried, is built upwards above the rim of
the original nest; so that the supplementary nest is
like one saucer placed within another.”

And the writer goes on to tell how, finding such a
nest one day, he tore off the upper bottom to find
three molothrus’s eggs, two rotten, but the third with
a living embryo in it ready to hatch, which was very
lively and angry when, excluded from the shell, he
took it in his hand. He goes on to say:

“The young tyrant-birds were about a fortnight
old, and as they hatch out only about twenty days
after the parent bird begins laying, this parasitical
egg, with a living chick in it, must have been deeply
buried in the nest for five or six weeks. Probably,
after the young tyrant-birds came out of their shells
and began to grow, the heat from their bodies, pene-
trating to the buried egg, served to bring the embryo
in it to maturity, but when I saw it I felt (like a
person who sees a ghost) strongly inclined to doubt
the evidence of my own senses.” *

Dr. Elliot Coues confirms this, remarking that
certain species of birds decisively reject the molo-
thrus’s egg, and build a two-storey nest, leaving the
obnoxious egg in the basement. I want no better
proof that birds possess a faculty indistinguishable,
so far as it goes, from human reason. Instinct, in
the ill-considered current sense of the term, could
never lead a summer yellow bird up to building a
two-story nest to let a cow-bird’s eggs addle below.
No question of inherited tendency here. t

* Birds of the Argentine, p 112.
+ Birds of North-West, p. 183.

An Easy Assumption. 139

Mr. H. S. Rodney reports having found in Pots-
dam, N.Y., May 15th, 1868, a nest of Zonotrichia
leucophrys (white-crowned sparrow), of two stories, in
one of which was buried a cow-bird’s egg, and in
the upper there were two more of the same, with
three eggs of the rightful owners.

Mr. E. A. Samuels, in 1862, wrote: “Some birds
build over the strange egg a new nest.” *

Mr. Romanes writes:

“« We may perhaps at first sight wonder why some
counteracting instinct should not have been developed
by the same agency in the birds which are liable to
be thus duped; but here we must remember that the
deposition of a parasitic egy is, comparatively speak-
ing, an exceedingly rare event, and therefore not one
that is likely to lead to the development of a special
instinct to meet it.”

See how nicely here the whole difficulty is got rid
of by an easy assumption! But there are instances of
birds—wrens, reed-warblers, robins, wagtails, etc.—
abandoning nests because of the intrusion of a cuckoo’s
egg. I myself have met with two cases in North-
East Essex, where in certain parts cuckoos so abound,
that I do not agree with Mr. Romanes that the de-
position of a cuckoo’s egg there is ‘‘an exceedingly
rare event.” Thenest of a wood-pigeon, and the nest
of a sedge-warbler, and, in a third case, in the nest
of a reed-wren, the cuckoo’s egg was thickly rolled
in small leaves and moss at the bottom, and put to
one side, that it might not be hatched by receiving
heat from the sitting bird’s body. Now, here the
question for Mr. Romanes’s disciples, admirers, and

* Birds of New England, p. 340.

140 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

followers is, as it would have been for him, had he
still been with us, to tell why the gift of detection
has been so clearly conferred on some birds, that
they will not receive a cuckoo’s egg at all. If in-
stinct suffices for them, why not for all the others?
though their own interests, and the increase and con-
tinuation of their own species, were clearly threatened
by it. And yet Mr. Romanes contents himself with
saying that, except as regards the question of some
voluntary power of colouration of eggs, there is
nothing connected with these instincts of the cuckoo
and duped birds that presents any difficulty to the
theory of evolution. If not to it, they most certainly
did to him; and that he did not see or feel it is ex-
actly our point proved.

XVII.

Ir the cuckoo lays a larger number of eggs than is
generally supposed, as both Dr. Rey and I believe—
though I do not tie myself to Dr. Rey’s number, and
if I may draw any inference from the immense number
of cuckoos in the area with which I am best acquainted,
then it is beyond all things clear that ‘“ the deposition
of a parasitic egg” is far from being ‘‘ comparatively
an exceedingly rare event :’’ eggs having been found
by me in nests which it is not generally thought that
the cuckoo at all has resource to—in the nests of
starlings, thrushes, linnets and larks—(on the ground,
mark you, where the throwing out would be difficult)
and bullfinches, namely. Whatever errors the indi-
vidual cuckoos may be guilty of, or whatever necessity

E.wact Matchings. 141

may lead them to choose such a course in dropping
eggs into nests, the true eggs of which are easily
discriminated from that of the cuckoo; yet Iam con-
vinced that in the vast majority of cases the cuckoos’
eggs are so well matched with those among which
they are intruded, that even by experts they are very
often not recognised, even though seen, and thus has
arisen the wholly misleading and erroneous idea to
which Mr. Romanes gives all the support he can that
the ‘‘ deposition of a parasitic egg is comparatively an
exceedingly rare event.” The unmatched eggs,
which, as I believe are, after all, a minority, are more
noticed than the matched eggs—a point which is
egregiously proved by this that up till a comparatively
recent date it was not believed in England that
cuckoos laid blue eggs, the Cornhill writer quoted,
and Mr. Luke Ellis did not believe it, when they
wrote recently—a thing certainly not creditable to the
observing power and patience of British naturalists,
for here German observers had long,anticipated them!

Mr. Bidwell has in his collection, which he was so
very kind as to invite me to see, a cuckoo's egg ina
redstart’s nest, which is so well matched, that even
the late Mr. John Hancock, when he first saw it,
would not accept it as a cuckoo’s egg ! and it was only
after very careful, prolonged and minute examination,
and on certain very indistinct markings being pointed
out tohim by Mr. Bidwell, that he would at length
admit it was. When specimens are found thus so
well matched, that even an expert and practical field
ornithologist like Mr. Hancock is in doubt about them,
and in nature would no doubt have passed them over,
what is extravagant in the position that large numbers

142 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

of cuckoos’ eggs are missed simply because they ar
so well matched—missed and never recognised even
when seen as being cuckoos’ eggs? It almost tempts
one here to be guilty of a small joke, and to say that
the cuckoo has not only managed to dupe, gowk
(Scotticé), or take-in small birds, many of them, but
some even of the great ornithologists and men of
science also, thus oddly reversing natural positions.
Andcertainly I for one cannot accept Dr. Rey’s notion
of excess of unmatched eggs here over matched ones,

Then, if the deposition of a cuckoo’s or parasitic
egg is, according to Mr. Romanes, ‘“ comparatively
an exceedingly rare event,” how account for the vast
collections of cuckoos’ eggs that have been made,
and that are being made, every year in almost every
district of the United Kingdom? When Mr. Bidwell
had his exhibition some years ago, which he organised
so well and successfully, he showed something like
go09 cuckoos’ eggs. There are well-known vast,
private collections of cuckoos’ eggs in various parts
of the country (not to speak of those on the Conti-
nent, including that of Herr Pralle at Hildesheim),
the most extensive and complete being those of Col.
5utler,* Mr. Massey, Mr. Norton, and Lord Roths-
child, besides those in the public collections or mu-
seums, which are constantly being added to and im-
proved, and also sections of the more general collec-
tions of well-known ornithologists, such as those of
the late Lord Lilford, the late Henry Seebohm, and
the late John Hancock, and unnumbered smaller
endless private collections, which are constantly being

* Most of the eggs in Colonel Butler's collection were taken
during the first week in June.

Parasitic Eggs not rare. 143

increased,—all which goes to prove that the ‘“ depo-
sition of a parasitic egg is not comparatively an ex-
ceedingly rare event.” And more than that: if such
vast collections of eggs withdrawn does not, in a
marked way over a course of years, perceptibly—very
perceptibly—diminish the numbers of cuckoos in a
given district, then, assuredly, we have here another
and most convincing proof that vast numbers of
cuckoos’ eggs, whether through perfection of match-
ing or not, entirely escape, and the notion that the
«deposition of a parasitic egg is comparatively an
exceedingly rare event” is thus conclusively blown
to the winds, as one of the easy, comfortable assump-
tions by which late evolutionists get apparent consis-
tency in their very ambitious works !

When we come on such cases as that described by
Herr Braune, where he found, in the oviduct of a
cuckoo he bad shot, an egg so exactly like that of
the icterine warbler’s that only by this was he led to
recognise as the cuckoo’s an exactly similar egg in a
warbler’s nest; and that other reported by Herr
Grunach, who, in a most abnormally coloured egg,
quite unlike the ordinary eggs of the cuckoo, by dis-
section undoubtedly found the cuckoo parentage of
the bird inside by the zygodactyle feet; or that of
Messrs. Seebohm and Elwes, who decisively estab-
lished the fact of cuckoos laying blue eggs by finding
the young bird inside a blue egg with zygodactylic
feet, we may well be excused implicitly accepting
dicta of certain kinds too frequently given us, as
though all was practically and satisfactorily explained
under certain axioms and theories about the cuckoos
and their ways.

144 Darwin and Romanes dealt with,

The time that elapsed between the date (1787) of
Jenner’s observation and those of Messrs. Seebohm
and Elwes, who conclusively demonstrated the fact
of cuckoos laying blue eggs was, as already said,
about a century—a century on which English ornith-
ologists would pique themselves, regarding it as one
of the greatest activity and definite result, with evo-
lution, natural selection, etc., etc.—and the very fact
that cuckoos’ blue eggs for so long escaped all notice
whatever, is a kind of justification for our saying that
points of almost equal importance about this mys-
terious bird may be overlooked even now. One of
them, the very frequency of parasitic deposition, in
opposition to Mr. Romanes’ easy, very easy assunip-
tion that it is so ‘comparatively an exceedingly
rare event’ that it wasn’t worth while for mother
nature to arm the hosts of little birds by counter-in-
stinct to prevent and defeat it; and so witha full
appearance of philosophy get quit of that difficulty
by a most monster assumption—the most pretentious
petitio principii that I, in the language of the delight-
ful Artemus, ‘‘ have ever experiunced.” Besides, just
realise where these fellows go. Instead of patiently
looking and pointing us to new facts, they are keen
to speak ex cathedra for mother nature in what she
might, may, would, could, or should do. Mother
nature, you may rely on it, will not come and make
her bosom bare in this sort of way, even to them.
She doesn’t come: indeed, she mostly goes; and she
has no back hair or odd fal-als about her, on which
you can lay hold to hinder her, either, or pull her
back. All you can dois very laboriously and humbly
to follow after—often even with sighs, and groans,

Do Woodpeckers see in the dark ? 145

and weary feet: and I may even venture to say that
she does hate the fellows that want to show wiser or
deeper than she is, and would pose as if they knew
everything.

AVIII.

CoLoneL BuTLer had a query in the Zoologist (or
Ibis)—certainly one or other—-some years ago, re-
specting thé power of the woodpecker to see in the
dark. His query arose in this way. He found a
woodpecker’s nest with one egg. Cutting a round,
circular piece out of the tree, just below the nest, he
was able to extract the true egg, and to put in its
place a thrush’s egg—about the same size and shape,
though very different in colour. Having done this,
he at once filled up the hole with the bung, as near
as he could, exactly colouring it over to the likeness
of the bark of the tree. Almost to his surprise, after
all this, he found that the woodpecker stuck to the
nest ; and when she had laid four more eggs, he took
out the bung, and found, to his surprise also, that
the thrush’s egg had been rolled into the recess left
by the bung just there not penetrating far enough in
to get even surface inside as well as out, and the
thrush’s egg almost fell out when he extracted the
bung.

Now, it was clear that when the bird was in the
nest the place was quite dark beneath her; and how
did she know that the thrush’s egg was not her’s—
which she most conclusively proved that she did?
But have birds no sense either of touch or of smell ?
Either of these senses might have aided the bird even
if no light was there.

146 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

The coot will not sit upon duck’s eggs. The sense
of touch and smell in certain birds must be very keen:
for a gentleman, a friend of mine and true naturalist,
in Essex, has persevered with experiments with the
coot in this direction: he had at last the eggs both of
the teal and mallard carefully coloured to imitate the
coot’s eggs, and, taking away the coot’s, these ducks’
eggs were carefully substituted. But the wary coots
were not to be done: in all cases they abandoned the
nests and at once set about laboriously building others
at different parts of the pond side, and nothing would
tempt either of them back again, though their own
eggs wererestored. They would not be tempted to go
near the nests nor look at them. The argument
suggested by these facts is exactly on all fours with
that from the woodpecker and the thrush’s egg. And
one question which arises here is important indeed.
If the woodpecker in the dark is able so decisively
to detect the egg of a thrush about the same form and
size as its own, and to deal with it effectively, why is
it that so many birds fail to discriminate, and in their
open nests with full light to aid them, between a
cuckoo’s egg, which is much bigger frequently and
almost always a little bigger, than their own eggs,
and will adopt it and hatch it, and at great labour,
rear the alien nestling, to the utter destruction of
their own brood, their instinct or intelligence just
there failing to protect the species. Is the one
instinct a lack of instinct or a ‘“ misleading instinct”
—which? They cannot both spring from the same
source. Besides all which, the little birds many of
them must have had experience and have utterly
failed to profit by it; while the woodpecker, with no

Questions needing Answers. 147

experience at all, rejects an egg which to certain
senses must in the dark seem very much like its own,
or the coots rejecting the ducks’ eggs and deserting
the nest.

In one word, Nature has here armed the wood-
pecker and the coot with a wonderful instinct against
brooding alien eggs—an instinct, by the way, which
is seldom or never called out: while Nature has
failed—absolutely failed—to arm many small birds
with any such instinct as regards cuckoos’ eggs.
Why is this? Mr. Romanes argued with all his
might that the deposition of cuckoos’ eggs was “‘ com-
paratively so exceedingly rare an event’ that Nature
had not deemed it worth her while to call out a
counteracting instinct, mark you ; but here is a puzzle
which has three branches: (1) she has, apparently,
armed the woodpecker and coot with this instinct
without any great call to do so—deposition of alien
eggs in their nests being certainly ‘an exceedingly
rare event;” and she has not so armed many birds
where there is assuredly the very greatest call : for (2)
the deposition of cuckoos’ eggs is not, either here or in
foreign countries, ‘‘an exceedingly rare event ’’—
whole species being much reduced on this very ac-
count; so that Mr. Romanes was either writing in
ignorance, or writing so from design, helplessly. The
problem remains: Why has Nature bestowed on
certain birds so strong an instinct, which is seldom or
never called into exercise, and refrained from bestow-
ing it where, for preservation and increase even of
the species, it was so much needed; and (3) how is it
that a few species of birds, more and more in all
countries, have come, and are coming, to reject or to
build over the cuckoo’s egg ?

148 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

Nature, from the Romanes point of view, seems to
be so very capricious that she has no laws at all—
she arms birds with a strong instinct where, practi-
cally, they don’t need it—the deposition of a thrush’s
egg in a woodpecker’s nest being, not comparatively,
but absolutely, an ‘exceedingly rare event,” and
where they do much need it—the deposition of
cuckoos’ eggs in the nests of other birds being, by
comparison here, not at all an ‘exceedingly rare
event,”’ she takes care to think it not worth while
to arm them against it, or to allow them to learn
anything by constant experience of injury to the
species. In a word, Nature—too like, alas! to Jahvé,
the Hebrew god—is, according to Mr. Romanes, a
playful, capricious bully and tyrant, full of favour-
itism and of unreasonable dislikes—allowing some
species to increase by wilfully depriving others that
more minister to man’s pleasure, of countervailing
instincts, which she does not think it worth while to
bestow, to develop, or to call out, because ‘it isn’t
worth her while.’ Mr. Romanes was a bit of a
theologist : here he is so, too, and didn’t know it.

When, therefore, Mr. Romanes said that Nature,
because of the rarity of deposition of cuckoo’s eggs,
had not thought it worth while to bring into play a
counteracting instinct in the little birds, he was
doubly wrong—wrong (1) as to the fact of the depo-
sition of cuckoo’s eggs being, ‘‘ comparatively speak-
ing, an exceedingly rare event ;”” and wrong (2) as to
the fact that Nature had not thought it worth while
to callinto play in victimised birds a counter-balancing
instinct. And the question to be answered by Mr.
Romanes’ friends and disciples now is, why Nature

Dr. Russel Wallace's Law. 149

has called into play this counter-balancing instinct in
some few species and not at all in some others. If
they will satisfactorily answer that, then we shall
heartily thank them: till then we shall take leave to
say, that so far as they follow their master, they but
make ‘confusion worse confounded,” by assuming
certain things, and then, on the ground of these false
and most groundless and ignorant assumptions—
speaking categorically for Nature in her doings or not-
doings.

And how does Dr. Russel Wallace reconcile this
with his law, that useful variations tend to increase,
and useless or hurtful to diminish ?

XIX.

THE assumption, moreover, that parasitic deposits
were so rare that it was not worth while for Mother
Nature to generate a counteracting instinct to defeat
them, is fully met and upturned by the facts we have
just dwelt on; and, besides that, the mystery here,
by Romanes’ suggestion, is only deepened: for, if
Mother Nature has not deemed it worth while to
bring in any counteracting instinct to defeat such
parasitism, then she seems just here to have gone a
shade too far in the direction of ‘survival of the
fittest "—if fittest is indeed to mean anything else
than “survival of those that survive.’ ‘“ Fittest!”
How are you to discriminate and justify such pro-
cedure here on your own ground? Goethe put it
clearly from his point of view: ‘ Nature does not
appear to be very scrupulous. She has a good fund

150 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

of life to lavish, and she does so now and then with-
out much hesitation. But how does it happen that
so many young singing birds are lost fora single young
cuckoo?”

This suggests to us a very different notion from
that of Mr. Romanes, who too boldly spoke for
Mother Nature. Nature, on a broader reading, is
perpetually contriving, by the ministry either of
special families or special individuals of these fami-
lies, to meet, modify, and defeat such plans as those
of Mr. and Mrs. Cuckoo. The secret of deserted
nests may often, in our idea, be found here. It is
certain that not only do some species reject the eggs
of the cuckoo, but that, more and more, certain in-
dividuals of other species come to reject them, build
them over, wrap them round with moss, etc., etc.,
and refuse to hatch them. See you, the balance of
Nature is something, and is preserved in ways so
subtle, that such assumptions as those of Mr. Romanes
are at once very bold and very blind; for, in our idea,
in precisely other ways than that does Nature work.
She is ceaselessly modifying, advancing ; showing by
more gradual and subtle processes that species do
awaken to the fact of non-production of their own
kind through such practices as that of Mr. and Mrs.
Cuckoo. And just look for a moment at this fact.
The more that these cunning pairs in a district suc-
ceed in victimising gullable birds, they reduce exactly
in proportion their numbers in succeeding years; so
that they are then compelled more and more to have
resource to more doubtful nests, or nests of those
birds in which the counteracting instinct has been
more fully awakened, and thus the balance is in some

Why Cuckoos’ Eggs are heavy. 151

degree kept even; otherwise there would be no
balance at all. The more easily duped birds would
gradually decrease, or even be exterminated, and the
cuckoos would so increase, that the inroads, even on
doubtful birds, would go on apace. If there is any-
thing in this, it might go some way to account for the
existence or the increase of unmatched eggs: account
for the evidences in certain directions of the cuckoo’s
methods becoming more and more patent and observ-
able—and account, too, for the very belated discovery
in our country of the most remarkable points in the
life-history of this most extraordinary bird. Thus,
instead of there being any ground for Mr. Romanes’
assumption, it is proved almost to demonstration that
Nature is, as Goethe says, very lavish of life, but also
very careful to preserve her balance: leading up to
the conclusion that the results of true study of her
are exactly in the teeth of such statements as that of
Mr. Romanes now specially under notice, and some of
those even of Mr. Darwin.

Yet Mr. Romanes, as we have seen, actually says
that, ‘‘ with the one doubtful and not sufficiently in-
vestigated exception—that of cuckoos adapting the
colour of their eggs to that of the eggs of the foster-
parents—there is nothing connected with these in-
stincts that presents any difficulty to the theory of
evolution.” Surely, there is at least this one other,
referred to most unreservedly by Dr. Bowdler Sharpe
—the cuckoo now lays an egg which, compared with
that of other birds, is of but a quarter the size that
it should be, though it is, compared with other eggs
of the same size, heavy. How is this, and how has
it been brought about? Did the bird always lay

152 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

such an egg even when in those days its habits were
like those of its American congeners? If not, how
did it come to effect such an extraordinary change as
to get rid of three-fourths the area of an egg without
any the least injury to the vitality or to the size of
the young bird that is to come from it? That is
quite as remarkable a point as anything about it, and
raises a problem exactly analogous to that of colour-
ation of eggs. If the reducing of the size of the eggs
was a very, very gradual process, as under evolution
it ought to be, how was it that small birds were,
through ages, taken in with such a monster egg in
comparison with their own—the more that even now,
when the egg is so reduced in size and some at least
vague effort made to vary colour to imitate other
eggs, certain birds are apt to detect it, throw it out,
or build it over so as not to hatch it? Surely most
birds have some conception of size if they have
not of colour; besides this, to brood an egg of such
dimensions would be hurtful and inconvenient for
very small birds to sit on and to turn over, as they
must at intervals turn all the eggs over. Such a size
of egg, moreover, would militate against the hatching
of certain of the smaller eggs at the proper time by,
of course, causing the bird to sit too high above them
to keep them all equally warm. Again, if birds—
especially small birds—could be thus deceived with
one egg of a natural size, or nearer to a natural size,
for the cuckoo through long, long ages, what, then,
was the necessity for reduction in size and efforts
after contrasted colouration? This would then be
purely a waste of energy, and still is so.

Or did the cuckoos of the ages far back go on re-

Mr. Kearton’s Idea. 153

ducing the size of their eggs slowly and yet them-
selves brooding them till they had brought them to
a certain point, and then began, ‘‘ through the selec-
tion of self-originating tricks,” their process of para-
sitism. This would, perhaps, be the most daring
instance under evolutionary Jaw of a clear and con-
scious preparation, in view of succeeding at last in a
practical way, ‘‘ through the selection of self-originat-
ing tricks’’—the birds of the early time far-feeling
forward to our later time, like prophets of infinitely
more than Mosaic forecast.

It must have been in one of either of these ways
the change was effected, and we should be obliged to
Mr. Grant Allen, as the most popular and facile of
evolutionist expositors and illustrators, to tell us
which it was.

Mr. Kearton writes :

“It is certain that the cuckoo lays more than one
egg; but, although naturalists of good repute have
mentioned the number as five, and others have been
of opinion that even a larger number may be laid,
there is, so far as I know, no reliable evidence to
support either supposition.

‘«‘T have never noticed that young cuckoos exceeded
in numbers the old ones, in a given district where I
was out of doors all day long, every day in the year,
and many years together in unbroken succession.
But, of course, the number hatched could never repre-
sent the number laid, although the place to which I
refer was singularly free from vermin and collectors.”*

If so, to what could the great disparity between
eggs laid and eggs hatched be due? Special causes

* British Birds’ Nests, p. 42.

154 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

of some kind must operate to maintain so great a
disproportion. In our idea it is the large numbers of
birds—probably an increasing number—that turn out,
build over or destroy the cuckoo’s egg, and refuse
to hatch it. By this the cuckoos are kept in check,
otherwise they would soon dominate other birds al-
together and decimate them. We see the same
process in operation, in many ways, by which the
balance of Nature is approachably maintained. This
is another and a new light on Mr. Romanes’ random
and unfounded assertion that the deposition of a
cuckoo’s egg must be ‘“‘ comparatively such an ex-
ceedingly rare event ” that it was not worth while for
Nature to develop counteracting instincts.

Unless by one or other agency of this sort, it is
evident that we should find some more definite relic
of these eggs that come to nothing.”

ANOTHER point of vast importance, which certainly
neither Mr. Darwin nor Mr. Romanes in the least
faced, is this, that wherever you find a disproportion

* Gilbert White, in his letters to Daines Barrington, had
already questioned the statement that the cuckoo lays only one
egg and proposed to examine the ovarium so as to settle the
matter.

Jenner found precisely what Gilbert White had expected—
that the ovary of the cuckoo was exactly like a hen’s ovary
with eggs in all stages, and he concluded, as White said he
would do, if the fact were so, that the cuckoo laid a great
number in each year.—Creighton's Fenner and Vaccination, pp.
12 and 13.

Disproportion of Sexes. 155

of the sexes, marked and permanent, involving such
an excess of males as we find among the cuckoos,
you have one of the most efficient tendencies to re-
duction of the species. The species, then, can only
survive by some extraordinary means resorted to by
the females—a thing which has exactly happened
with the cuckoos, as also, we shall yet see, with the
American cow-birds. This extraordinary thing is,
in their case, the deposition of eggs in other birds’
nests, and the instinct in their young to turn out the
eggs or legitimate young from the nests where they
may be, to have fullest guarantee they shall be fed
and tended. In no case of birds which I have kept
in confinement, and have got to breed, is there on the
part of the hen any desire for intercourse after one
half of her eggs are laid. Most carefully she avoids
this, and is wholly unmoved in this direction by any
demonstrations of the cock to which he sometimes
will yield himself, only then to be firmly put aside by
the hen. This is, in conformity with a great law, that
after full conception, coition in any form is not bene-
ficial to the progeny, or may not be, and in nature
the law in this respect is very obtaining—the instinct
on the part of the females being absolute in rejecting
all sexual advances. The hornbill cock, when he
builds in his mate the moment she begins to brood
by plastering up the hole of the nest with clay, leav-
ing just enough space for his bill to introduce food to
her, erects a real barrier to intercourse, but that is
only a shadow of a yet more real law. Certain of
the ducks—more especially the eider ducks and their
allies—when the females begin to brood, depart and
take to fresh feeding grounds on the coast or in the
straits between the islands.

156 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

Promiscuity, carried beyond a very definite point,
everywhere is adverse to fertility. So far as practice
or experiment can be called in to aid us here, it is
absolutely confirmatory. The rabbit is one of the
most fertile of creatures; but is so fertile because it
is so observant of this rule. Here is a proof of it,
as far as proofs can be got in such matters as these ;
when we are concerned with wild creatures more
especially. One method of exterminating rabbits,
which is said to be found highly successful, is to trap
as many as possible, kill off all the does that are
caught, and let the bucks loose. ‘ The results of
this mode of operation are that the male rabbits, as
soon as they begin to predominate in numbers, per-
secute the females with their attentions, and prevent
them from breeding. They also kill the young rabbits
that happen to be born, and even, as Mr. Rodier
asserts, when they largely predominate in numbers,
worry the remaining does to death.” *

By the way, notice here in animal life, that excess
of males, or polyandrous promiscuity, is not only
adverse to progeny by arrest of conception, but is
favourable to infanticide.

Now, in the case of the cuckoo, it really seems as
though we have an exception to this great law of
Nature. The stimulus to the rejection of the male
advances by the hen is the attraction to brooding.
The cuckoo does not brood, therefore it has no pause
of this kind to the desire for contact with the male.
If under contact with many males it goes on un-
interruptedly laying eggs, this, having regard to all

* Nature, vol. xxxix, p. 493, quoted by Coe in ‘ Nature versus
Natural Selection.”

Destruction of Cuckoos’ Eggs. 157

the facts, is an argument for a large number of eggs
in a season; for, granting this, there is no reason
why it should not have a dozen or twenty eggs a
season just as easily as five. Unlike birds that brood,
it has no temptation at a definite point to reject male
advances, and a vast body of fact goes to prove that
it does not: laying eggs soon after it arrives, in the
very beginning of May, and continuing to lay eggs up
to close on the 29th July, within a few days of its
leaving. The risk the eggs have to run is very great
—many must be lost, many are dropped in places
where they can’t be hatched, no doubt, because the
hens have not found suitable nests ready for their
deposition. The young cuckoos, from the very long
period of their helplessness and inability to feed
themselves after fledging, must suffer greatly from
birds of prey and other causes. If Mr. Darwin could
speak thus of eggs of birds which go through the
normal process of nesting and brooding, how much
must it apply to the case of eggs of the cuckoo com-
mitted to the care of others or laid carelessly on open
spaces :

‘The real importance of a large number of eggs
or seeds is to make up for much destruction at some
period of life; and this period, in the great majority
of cases, is an early one. . . If many eggs or
young are destroyed, many must be produced, or the
species will become extinct.” *

Clearly, there is great destruction of cuckoos’ eggs,
and, from Mr. Darwin’s argument, there must be
many produced. Dr. Russel Wallace’s idea of the
immense destruction of birds’ eggs and young in

* Origin of Species, p. 52.

158 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

normal cases, leads us justifiably to infer that it must
be yet greater in the cuckoo’s case.

Consideration of these points from this line of fact
and reasoning removes again the problem of the
cuckoo entirely from time and pressure of migratory
instinct, as Darwin and Romanes, following Jenner,
put it, to the influence of promiscuity or polyandry
(nearly allied), combined with the non-brooding and
non-pause, strictly speaking, with regard to sexual
intercourse. This is the line which further study
of the cuckoos, to be really fruitful, everywhere must
take; and by it the empty notion of Mr. Romanes,
‘‘that the deposition of a cuckoo’s egg is compara-
tively an exceedingly rare event,” will, unless we are
all mistaken, be found one of the most baseless things
ever written by a wise and clever man.

And then, for a moment, glance at one sentence
from the pen of Dr. Russel Wallace:

“Tt is, as we commenced by remarking, a ‘struggle
for existence,’ in which the weakest and least per-
fectly organised must always succumb.” *

Well, now, just look at the small birds and the
cuckoo. Is there discrimination there—any what-
ever? If there is on the part of the adult cuckoos,
it is for the strong parents, all fitted to be very active
and to feed their greedy child; but the proper pro-
geny of the foster parents all go, and the assump-
tion from the discrimination would be that they were
of this bird ‘fittest to survive.” The young cuckoos
often survive; are they the “fittest’’ over these
strong small birds ?—which, by the way, are not here

* Contr. to Natural Selection, p. 33.

Shrunk up Males. 159

the weakest and least perfectly organised in the sense
Dr. Russel Wallace alone can mean.

It is very remarkable that Professor Van Beneden
(see Animal Parasitism, p. 71), so far as we can
understand him, actually notes the fact that pro-
miscuous polyandry in certain parasitic worms and
insects leads to something of the same result: the
shrinking away of the males to a mere sexual organ,
which again shrinks away; the multiplication of
males taken under special protection of the female,
which, if they become burdens to her, she only resorts
to more effective devices to maintain and aid them—
leading to wonderful development of the females. The
following passage certainly seems to point this way:

“The whole family of the Abdominalia, a name
proposed by Darwin, if I am not mistaken,” (but now
superseded and disused) “have the sexes separate ;
and the males, comparatively very small, are attached
to the body of each female. It is a case of poly-
andria, which we see realised in the Scalpellum.
Darwin made known the existence of supplementary
males, so small and so little developed, that they are
with difficulty discovered; and so badly are they
provided with organs, that they have neither those
of motion, nor a stomach to digest.”

Is this then a case of survival of the fittest, or is it
not? The males really reduced to shrunk up organs
—have they survived as the fittest ?

160 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

XXI.

With regard to the second half of the passage from
Mr. Darwin's Origin of Species, it really, while pro-
fessing wholly to solve the problem, practically leaves
it untouched. The difficulty most closely presses on
this very point which Mr. Darwin slips over in the
lightest possible manner; not deigning at all to deal
with it. And the question is this: whether, result-
ing from definitely traceable changed external cir-.
cumstances, or from slightly modified function, or
both acting together or reacting on each other—the
American cuckoos do now, as Mr. Darwin presumes
the ancient progenitor of our European cuckoo did,
occasionally lay an egg in another bird’s nest. No
help is gained by saying that other birds occasionally
—(as in the case of pheasants laying in partridges’
nests, etc.)—lay eggs in other birds’ nests, because in
none of these cases do we have any marked or even
noticeable tendency to any progress whatever in the
same direction as the European cuckoos have, on his
theory, taken. The analogy, therefore, completely
breaks down at the point where it should be strongest,
and is, in fact, no analogy at all. The most marked
point about our cuckoos is the smallness of the eggs.
The non-parasitic American cuckoos, as he somewhat
maladroitly tells, lay full-sized eggs; but if they
have for ages occasionally laid eggs in other birds’
nests, and are moving on the way to fixed habit in
this respect, the eggs should already be a trifle less
than full sized.

And this point does not receive the attention we

The Molothrus Family. 161

had a right to expect it would receive, either from
Mr. Darwin or Mr. Romanes, as regards the Molo-
thrus, an American species allied to our starlings,
which have parasitic habits like those of the cuckoo.
The Molothrus bonariensis lays so many eggs in alien
nests that it is hardly possible many of them can be
hatched. These birds have the extraordinary habit
of pecking holes in the eggs of the foster-parents to
ensure that their own young shall be reared—a habit
which some observations would lead us to believe our
cuckoos sometimes practise, if an egg of theirs is laid
in the nest of a bird whose young is large and might
be too strong for the young cuckoo to turn out.
Molothrus precius never lays more than one egg ina
foster-nest, so that the young bird is securely reared.
What a satisfaction it would have been to know how,
as to size, the eggs of the various families of Molo-
thrus stood to each other; but men like Mr. Darwin
and Mr. Romanes, if they satisfy themselves about
important practical points like these, they certainly
do not manage to satisfy us very often, indeed. Per-
haps that is because we have dwelt too long on one
special and particular subject ; but that should only
gain for us from their followers something like sym-
pathy and appreciation.

‘« By a continued process of this nature,” says Mr.
Darwin, “I believe that the strange instinct of our
cuckoo has been formed.” Yes, but as, according to
him, the American cuckoos remain, as regards this
habit, merely occasional and aberrant depositors of
eggs in other birds’ nests, what is the element that in
our cuckoos determined their passage from this aber-
rancy—even if we admit it—to definite, sustained,

M

162 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

and most systematic parasitism in this very excep-
tional and peculiar form; or, at what point may it be
set down that the occasional and aberrant habit has
become what he all too boldly calls ‘ the strange in-
stinct.” I regard this phrase as in itself very un-
happy—and, in fact, un-Darwinian. A progress from
an occasional and aberrant habit of this kind very
gradually advancing and increasing, because of what
he really dwells on as observations of, and reflections
on, the benefit derived from it, mark you, not only to
the elder cuckoos themselves, but to their young
ones, are most decidedly separate and conscious acts
of reason and comparative judgment of the finest
kind—acts of reason, such as, when we find them
paralleled by men in trade or commerce, we have no
hesitation in designating by another name than
“strange instinct.” Instinct in this kind should be
in a general way unerring; but this does not by any
means apply to the conduct of the cuckoo, which,
looked at from many points, exhibits all the mistakes
and errors which Dr. Russel Wallace, dealing with
several points about birds, declares to be really a
failure of reasoning power, exactly as in the case of
men. We could give no end of instances of this,
and will do so if challenged. Nor does Mr. Darwin
even glance at such cases of clearly exceptional and
mis-calculated indulgence as we find in those great-
spotted cuckoos of Spain, where such a number of
cuckoo’s eggs were laid in the nests of the magpies.
Clearly, there, a whole class overdoes it. If these
young Spanish great-spotted cuckoos have anything
in common with the rapacity of all other young
cuckoos, there is not the slightest chance of, say,

Mr. Darwin misses the point. 163

eight cuckoos being fed by one pair of pies; and, if
they in this respect so very substantially differ from
our cuckoos, then another problem arises as to the
cause or reason of such an essential difference.

These are but a few suggestions out of a whole
list of difficulties that arose on us in reading Mr.
Darwin’s rather empty and ambitious passages in the
eighth chapter of his Origin of Species (6th edition).
We do not here proceed further in our list, but con-
tent ourselves with repeating that, if Mr. Darwin
had satisfied himself about the steps of the process
he sets down as highly probable—a process which,
mark you, gets wholly rid of one form of strongly
inherited instinct, and by gradual steps, practise in
which is, according to him, determined wholly by
long continued observations and considerations of
benefit at once to old ones and young, and had thus
reached a wholly new method of life and propagation
of the species—then, we hold that he was wholly
wrong in summing up the result as a “strange in-
stinct.”” In fact, he could hardly have been less dis-
cerning, philosophic, and perspicuous than he is in
this section of his eighth chapter of Origin of Species,
where this was perhaps demanded more than perhaps
anywhere else in all his writings.

XXII.

Mr. Heap.ey, in a remarkable article in one of the
quarterlies some years ago, laid it down that, ‘as a
rule,” it is among polygamous species that we find
the bird-combatants most desperate, and the antics
the most elaborate. The courage and ferocity of the

164 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

game-cock is proverbial, he said, by way of short
illustration. Now, this points the way to a peculiar
physiological fact: polygamy in the lower creatures
tends to develop the sexual organs of the male,
whereas polyandry among them tends to arrest the
development of these organs—to lessen them and to
cause after long lapse of time, a kind of shrinking
away. This is most decidedly the case with our
cuckoos ; it is, so far as I can learn, the case with the
American and other foreign cuckoos; it is the case
with all varieties of the Molothrus species. It is the
case with certain worms and insects, according to
Professor Semper and Professor Van Beneden, as we
have just seen. The polyandrous birds do not, so far
as I can find out, indulge in the combats that the
polygamous birds more especially tend to do; the re-
duction of the organs allaying passion and making
them content to share favours; suggesting the ques-
tion whether in the case of birds, the males of which
do now still fight, they had not at one time been poly-
gamous, and that changes and influence of a special
kind had not so equalised the sexes as to make poly-
gamy longer impossible. We know, for example,
that ground-sitting females are more exposed to
danger of various kinds than the males are: and this
may be an element in it: the change of nest either in
place or in form is largely due to the risk and danger
that had arisen on the sitting bird, as in the case
clearly of some of the weaver-birds and others we
might refer to. The almost apparently arbitrary
adoption of domed nests by magpies and jays may
also have to do with this—the prevention of dispro-
portion in the sexes.

Propagation and Longevity. 165

This matter, as bearing on our subject, may well
demand a little more attention and illustration. The
slightest influence affecting the sexual parts speedily
affects the whole body—more especially those por-
tions of the body which set forth the signs of sexual
desire, appetite, or strength. Haeckel says:

““Every change in the sexual organs powerfully
reacts on the rest of the body; so, on the other hand,
every important change in another part of the body
must necessarily more or less react on the sexual
organs. This reaction will, however, only in many
cases become perceptible in the formation of the off-
spring which arises out of the changed generative
parts.” *

Haeckel also speaks of “‘ certain influences which
act upon the male organs of propagation only, and
affect the structure of the male descendants; and, in
like manner, other influences, which act upon the
female organs of propagation only, and manifest their
effects only in the change of structure of the female
descendants. This remarkable phenomenon is still
very obscure, and has not as yet been properly in-
vestigated.” {+

There can be no doubt, further, that length of life
is largely dependent on certain restrictions, if one
may say so, of the sexual indulgence, viewed in
certain aspects—that, in fact, the rule with regard to
various lower forms of animals, that the moment of
reproduction is also the moment of death, in a modi-
fied way, still largely prevails through nature. Dr.
Ray Lankester has made a great deal of this principle

* History of Creation, i, p. 247.
+ History of Creation, i, p. 230.

166 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

in his admirable and able book on Longevity. He
points out that a very large number of organisms die
at once on reproduction, ‘by the rapid abstraction
of the matter of life contained in the eggs and sperm
—Protozoa, insects and annual plants.” Traces of
the same law are to be found in much higher ranks
of existence, and among highly differentiated creatures
—in fact, the higher you go in this, the more illustra-
tions you find. For example, as Dr. Lankester puts
it, “ Among birds, smaller broods go with a greater
longevity.” He finds the same thing, to a certain
extent among fishes; writing:

‘In fishes, which give personal attention to young,
the bulk and number of young are immensely reduced.
The pipe-fish (which carries its young in a pouch, and
the tube-mouth, which does the same—only the
father in the one case, and the mother in the other)—
the Hippocampus and Arius of the Amazons. He
also finds corroboration of the principle in mules and
cut animals, which confirm the hypothesis that
generative expenditure antagonises longevity.” *

It is the same among certain of the parasitic
worms. Van Beneden says, in addition to what we
have already noted :

‘‘ Between the true hermaphrodites and the true
dizecious worms are found species in which the males
gradually dwindle and become dependent on the
female ; this is to be seen in the Spherulariz, among
which the male is only an appendage to the female
sex. We find here full evidence of the fact that the
female is more important than the male with regard to
the preservation of the species. In some species the

* Longevity, p. 76.

The Stickleback. 167

sexes differ but little; in others the sexual differences
become greater, and the male is only one-third the
length of the female, but in some of them the dispro-
portion is greater still. At the same time, we see
nematodes where males are attached to the females,
so as to appear to form only one single individual ;
in other cases the male seems to disappear to such an
extent that we find nothing but the male organ in the
female; indeed there are instances of male worms
which, without changing their form, occupy the cavity
of the matrix, and, like the learnean crustaceans, are
parasites of their females.” *

Reproduction in certain circumstances shortens life.

“The American aloe reproduces and dies in about
five years in Mexico; in England it elaborates leaves
for a hundred years before flowering. Again, the
axolotl reproduces in warm Mexico asa branchiferous
amphibian ; in colder climates its fertility is dimin-
ished, it becomes salamandroid before reproducing,
thus lengthening life by delaying genesis.” t

Then, for another instance, take the stickleback :
he is a great fighter, armed and plumed and mailed
cap a pie, and this because he is a determined poly-
gamist—he is perhaps the most plucky fighter of all
fishes—the more he fights the more colour he gets,
as though into him passed all the hues of all the
enemies he had conquered, and this because he must
secure many wives, as many as stock fully his open-
ended barrel-built nest with eggs. And the moment
his fighting and breeding are ended he subsides into a
commonplace little stickleback; he waxes thin and

* Parasitic Animals, p. 235.
+ Ray-Lankester's Longevity, p. 85.

168 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

limp and practically dies off for a while—only at the
proper season to renew his brilliancy and, as it were,
his youth.

There has been a great deal of discussion about
the cause or causes of the malformations of horns in
deer. Mr. Tom Speedy having pointed out that,
after maturity in the twelfth or thirteenth year, the
antlers gradually fall off in size and appearance, he
proceeds to account for the excessive size of the
antlers in certain breeds or herds by saying that no
doubt high feeding is the cause, as they are never
met with so large in the wild state. He also con-
cludes that the malformation of antlers, single or
unicorn in some cases, at different angles in others,
and in yet others, one antler growing normally and
the other growing downward, may generally be trace-
able to close breeding or to former wounds. We
should say that the former is the cause, pointing to
modification of the sexual organs. It is well known
that in castrated animals the horns wholly cease to
appear or are of the most rudimentary character.

Mr. Parker Gilmore found among the stags of
Vancouver Island many with malformed antlers, and
this he accepted as an unquestionable proof that their
surroundings were not exactly such as nature intended
them to enjoy.* Questions about deer and bearings
of points in their life-history here, will be treated
more fully by me in another volume. We, for our
part, have no doubt that the unsuitability of the sur-
roundings directly affected the sexual organs of which
the malformation of the horns was but a sign.
Haeckel has noticed a peculiar point about the

* Speedy, p. 259.

In favour of Long Life. 169

water-salamanders or tritons, which, like frogs in
youth, possess gills. They leave the water, lose their
gills and develop lungs. If they are prevented from
leaving the water, they do not lose their gills. The
gills remain and the water salamander continues
through life in the same condition as its lower rela-
tions, the gilled salamanders, which attain their full
size and sexual development, and reproduce without
losing their gills.*

The reduction of virile power in the cuckoo males,
so that they consent to share the favours of the
female; and the lessening or shrinking—in one of the
ovaries (as proved by the production of eggs so much
smaller than the eggs of other birds and out of all
proportion to size) would, on this line of argument, be
in favour of long life in the individual cuckoos ; and
on this point there is much room for careful observa-
tion.

XXIII.

Anp on what true scientific ground can Mr.
Romanes say that the habit of the thrush in taking
snails to stones to break the shells, and the flying up
of crows and gulls with shell-fish to drop them on
rocks or stones so as to smash the shells, ‘‘ must orig-
inally have been intelligent actions purposely designed
to secure the ends attained,” + and then deny that
originally the habit of the young cuckoo to turn out
the true occupants of the nest was a “truly intelligent
action purposely designed to secure the ends attained.”

* Haeckel’s History of Creation, i, p 241
+ Animal Intelligence, p. 283.

170 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

Here the action was as direct as any action could be
to secure the end desired, though it is very evident
that it was an action right in face of some strong
antecedent instinct which prevailed when, like certain
of the young of the American cuckoos, ours were
brooded, as they now are. The origin of the action of
the young cuckoo could no more have been merely
automatic or reflex action than the above actions of
the thrushes, and crows, and gulls; seeing that it
must—since the species flourished—have come into
use precisely so as nearly to synchronise with actions
on the part of the.old ones—which on no theory
whatever could you call instinctive, any more than
the habit of the thrush in carrying snails to stones to
break the shell, or the flying up of crows and gulls to
drop shell-fish on rocks or stones to crack the shells.
If this act in its beginning had not synchronised with
the precedent acts of the elders, the cuckoos would,
probably, have been extinct. So that here, not only
have you a definite act, to all appearance possible only
to reason and traversing one of the strongest and most
prevailing of all instincts, but corresponding acts on
the part of the young birds, without which the ante-
cedent acts of the adults would have wholly failed and
could not have been effective for their’end. Here is
a case of effort scarcely ever failing by a whole class
directed to secure a most definite end—or couple of
ends—self-preservation first and the perpetuation of
the species afterwards—which certainly could not
have originated in the process Mr. Darwin holds by—
“through the selection of self-originating tricks.”
Mr. Grant Allen at one place italicises these words as
giving in brief the main origin of instinct in wild

Instinct—its meaning. 171

creatures ; and IJ should be exceedingly glad to know
from him, if under this he includes the throwing out
of the proper nestlings by the young cuckoos or
excepts it, placing it among efforts of intelligence;
and, after he has given his answer definite and clear I
shall, perhaps, have a further question or two to put
to him, if he will kindly allow me.

We are, meanwhile, in absolute agreement with
Professor St. George Mivart, who writes in his essay
on instinct :

“It is plain that actions may be instinctive in one
animal and not in another, or at one period of life in
the same animal and not at another.”

And we agree with him that the pretending to be
hurt, and fluttering about as though helpless and
even feigning death on the part of many birds and
insects, cannot be explained satisfactorily either on
the ground of instinct or of inherited habit any more
than certain purposive actions in insect-neuters that
do not propagate can be fairly so explained.

Instinct, as used to cover or to account for certain
changes and adaptations in the lower creatures, is
utterly inept and, what is worse, directly misleading.
Take, for example, the case of the baya bird of India
which hangs its pendulous dwelling from a projecting
bough, twisting it with grass into a form somewhat
resembling a bottle with a prolonged neck, the en-
trance being inverted so as to baffle the approaches
of its enemies, the tree-snakes and other reptiles;
and, vet more than that, in view of other enemies,
inserts fire-flies in the clay about it to warn them off.
Or, further and more striking still, the case of some
of the South African weaver-birds, the taha, and

172 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

others, which, having been much persecuted by tree-
climbing snakes taking their eggs from an open nest
on a tree as with the baya bird, fell to building a
nest, hung by a kind of long fibres from an aloe leaf
from a bough overhanging a stream, and within a
foot of it, and now so constructed the nest that it had
to be entered from below; the nest really being at
the far-end of a short passage, and so balanced that
the eggs and young would only weigh it enough to
make it hang really even—that is, before they come,
the opening or mouth of the nest drooping at a kind
of slant, and when they do come it hangs even or
almost even.

We have nests in so far of the same general char-
acter in the case of the Sitarya ocularis of Bathurst, of
which there is a fine specimen presented to the South
Kensington Museum by Dr. Rendall, and yet another,
the nest of the weaver-bird of Uganda; or another
still, in the very variable suspended bottle-nest of the
grey warbler of New Zealand, as figured in Sir W.
L. Buller’s handbook.

A further and most striking instance is that of the
Leipoa ocellata of Australia, which systematically
places its eggs to be hatched by heat of fermentation
in the centre of a vast mound of leaves, and mould,
and dust, yards square—the young ones forcing their
way out of the mound when hatched, without the
least help from the parents. Mr. John Gould has
given full descriptions of this bird and its habits in
Introduction to Birds of Australia, \xxiii, where
drawings of the mound and nest are also presented.
There is here the same correspondence between the
nest-building of the parents and the instinct given to

A Splendid Act of Reason. 173

the young to force their way out, as in the young
cuckoos turning out the true young, to carry forward
the old one’s deposition of eggs. Judging from ana-
logy, in none of these cases was this the first and
original nest of the bird; but a nest that was at a
definite point hit on by these various species, to meet
enemies and to overcome difficulties that threatened
the very existence of the species. The truth is, all
these ingenious and resourceful nests are but proofs
of a process of high differentiation.

Now, here you have something in which instinct,
however strong and however strange, could not, at
first, at all events, have aided these creatures. Once
these ingenious hang nests and mound nests were
made, of course, and had continued to be made for
generations, the making of them would in so far pass
into something more of mere hereditary gift, but cer-
tainly not that solely or absolutely. The species that
had individuals who could show such power of in-
vention, resource, and reasoning, in the process of
adapting structure of nests to needs due to changed
conditions; and besides that, in the case of the
Leipoa, had made veritable heat do the work of sitt-
ing, so as to defy the powers and resources of enemies
threatening actually the existence of the species, had
within them, latent, the same powers, still to be
educed again in circumstances equally threatening
the existence of the class. The moment (and it is
inevitably the thing of one moment) of the passage
from an ordinary twig or branch-supported nest in a
tree, to a hang nest over the water, with an object, is
a moment that celebrates a splendid act of reason.

The eggs of the Leipoa ocellata, again, are so fine

174 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

and brittle, that, very possibly, if they had continued
to be brooded, the species would have suffered through
eggs broken and wasted in the effort of the brooding
bird to turn them over—as partially, at all events,
brooded eggs must be, to get any approach to equal
heat at all parts from the sitting bird’s body. In the
mound the heat is equalised all over, or reaches a
near approach to this; so that you have the problem
either (1) of eggs too brittle for brooding and ex-
position in an open nest ; or (2), the problem of eggs
having become so because for ages the birds have
exposed them to the mound heat, and not sat upon
them. Whichisit? Mr. Grant Allen does not bring
us much help, when in his ‘* In Nature’s Workshop,”
in The Strand Magazine, 1899, he said, clearly
believing that mound-birds were found only in Aus-
tralia, that here we have an early form of bird that
had ‘‘ not advanced beyond the crocodilian level” of
leaving its eggs in the sand to be hatched by heat !

But, in our idea, indeed, it is in the study of such
adaptations and variations that the real attraction of
natural history lies to the true student, redeeming it
constantly from anything like a vast and dry know-
ledge of dead things, of mere stuffed specimens,
which are of real value simply as they may directly
or indirectly aid this.

So precisely it is, in our idea, with the cuckoos—
no instinct could at first have led the bird to drop its
egg into another bird’s nest—that was contrary to its
instinct which was to lay its egg in a nest that it had
built in a place that it had selected and prepared;
and the birds that had done so would, it is to be in-
ferred, accomplish as great a change again were they

Not Instinct—Reasoning Power. 175

threatened from other and very different causes with
extinction. This is exactly in the line of Mr. Dar-
win’s own ‘survival of the fittest ;”’ but the “ fittest ”
precisely by the possession of an order of powers
that at the right moment come into play and lift it
clean above its own earlier dominating instincts,
strictly viewed. The same thing might in many
ways be shown in the case of swallows and _ house-
martins, as we have already dwelt upon them.

Dr. Russel Wallace, after a survey of such facts as
these, decides, and we are not surprised at the
decision, that ‘‘ The mental qualities exhibited by
birds in the construction of their nests are the same in
kind as those manifested by mankind in the formation
of their dwellings.”

Of course, it has been well pointed out by Dr.
St. George Mivart and others that ‘survival of the
fittest’ from one point of view means nothing—
means only ‘survival of those that survive ’’—here
we have something that puts a meaning into the
phrase, when we find that new or latent powers have
been called into play to promote the continuance,
well-being and increase of the species.

Dr. Russel Wallace gave some excellent arguments
from the wise and skilful adaptations of birds to
changes in the materials and structure of men’s
houses as, for example, the changes resorted to
in England at a definite time by the swallows on the
adoption of brick or stone houses, instead of wood
that had been held by for centuries, as well as from
their stupidity and failures; and here he had to say
that in these cases it was failure not of instinct but
of reasoning power. Darwin’s disciples are great

176 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

guessers—they are full of ‘‘ probablys,” ‘‘ might be’s,”
‘may be’s,” “must be’s,” and so on, and don’t draw
distinctions they easily might do, were they not pre-
occupied and prejudiced, in the old fashioned and
less unworthy sense of it.

Darwin himself is not guiltless of the same ill ten-
dency as his imitators have cultivated to so dangerous
an extent, as when he writes, at p. 210, Origin of
Species (6th edition): ‘‘ The act of pointing probably
is as many have thought, only the exaggerated pause
of an animal preparing to spring on its prey.” The
‘“‘ probably is,” and the ‘‘many have thought,” are
really very characteristic here. The ‘ probably is,”
so naively backed up with the loose ‘thinking ” or
supposing of the ‘‘many,” that really from our great
observer and man of science and evolutionist, it is,
as Artemus the witty says, a darn site too much in
the way of supposition—supposition by supposition,
and put down as if it might blossom into scientific
fact itself.

AATV.

Is then the doctrine of ‘survival of the fittest” to
be regarded as illustrated in cuckoos that reduced
the size of their eggs by one means or another? I,
for one, can hardly think it. First of all, it is clear—
clear as noonday—that the process was gradual; very
gradual. The cuckoos in these early days, while
still laying larger eggs, survived; else we should not
have such large families of them now. They sur-
vived, and since a beginning must have been made
in laying eggs in other birds’ nests, and they suc-

Explanation of Sex-disproportion. 177

ceded so well, it seems almost a waste of means to
proceed as far as they have done in reducing the size
of the eggs. It seems indeed a waste, and worse,
unless the Darwinians will admit that, by the more
elaborate process, they have done more than survive
—that is, have gained some additional element of
enjoyment, ease or leisure. It does not seem that
this is the case with our cuckoos (canorus); they
are more pressed and put to it than almost any other
bird, and have sacrificed wholly that joy of brooding,
which seems the one taste of heaven for most other
birds, and also strictly the joys of true courtship and
mating. Besides, other cuckoos, and some of them
of larger make, succeed equally well, though their
eggs remain the natural size, or size proportioned to
that of the bird. And what, if in the severe pro-
cess of nature in modifying the oviduct, and, in-
deed, the whole system, especially of the female bird
—robbing her of the joys of true mating, brooding,
etc.—you have the explanation of the great dispro-
portion in number of the sexes that we see in our
common cuckoos now, so very marked and extra-
ordinary, that, instead of mating, there is promiscuity ;
instead of sequential seasonal companionship, there is
polyandry; and, instead of brooding and rearing
young, sheer parasitism and imposture. Survival of
the fittest! Well, yes, but here it lands you in a
quandary. The males have more survived than the
females, who most deserved to survive, as having
undergone the greatest functional change in order of
it. At least in the proportion of four to one, on my
lowest reckoning, from observations made; of seven
to one on my highest: so that your ‘survival of the

N

178 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

fittest,” if it is to proceed along the same course as it
has already done, will at last end, mark you, in no
survival at all—female cuckoos of our common species
will have died out. Will that then be claimed by you
as the final victory of your survival of the fittest,
when even the fittest, under stress of the application
of your own principles, have vanished — vanished
utterly? If the fittest of one species that alone sur-
vive are males, then you logically prove your case;
biologically, where are you? You need, surely, very
much to mend your definitions or your premises
somehow! The ragnarok of the cuckoos—the last
band of the migrating males—come to this country
for no purpose, or worse than no purpose, unaccom-
panied with females, and doomed to wander over
earth without ‘‘an object or an aim,” will be the final
proof that, after all, “survival of the fittest”? uni-
versally obtains, though whole races are without the
fittest or the fit, despite that they have shown such
resources, put such a strain on themselves in depart-
ing from normal principles of nature, that they died—
died, mark you—by the very efforts which, according
to you, if you have any basis at all, should have made
them survive and increase! Where the “ fittest”
are all males, or gradually tend to be, you have
surely reached the reductio ad absurdum of your
theory, by proving the fittest, after all, the unfit.

If the males have had no share whatever in the
efforts that have led to the lessening of the egg, or to
the colouring of it, and if ‘the remarkable instinct
which leads some species of cuckoos and crow black-
birds* to lay their eggs in the nests of other species

*«Cyow"’ is distinctly printed by Dr. Brooks here, but, of
course, it should be cow-blackbirds.

Unintentional Suicide. 179

must have originated in the females,’* as one pro-
nounced American follower and illustrator of Mr.
Darwin's doctrines has asserted, have we not in these
arguments an additional ground for adhering to our
position indicated above that the fit go down and the
unfit survive ?

Nor can aid be got here by any suggestion that
increase of males over females is due to thickness of
eggshell, since the same will hold of that—the female
producing it—and thus the fit, by their very fitness,
are made contributory to their own decrease or ex-
tinction, or a kind of involuntary, but not the less a
real ‘‘ natural selection,” if unintentional, suicide! !

Dr. Brooks in his ‘‘ Law of Heredity,” though in
some respects a very decided follower of Darwin,
after no end of experiments with animals in inter-
breeding, and comparison of his results with those of
others, reaches the general conclusion ‘that there is
beyond and behind the action of ‘selection,’ some
more deeply seated law, which determines that the
males, shall as a rule be more modified than the
females.” t Now, it seems to us that our common
cuckoo gives something which is not quite consonant
with this: and we should be much obliged, should
this writing ever reach the eye of Dr. Brooks, if he
would give us his views on it. From what is seen
above, certainly it is the fact that the female cuckoos
undergo more modification in internal organ, and as a
result, in functional activity than do the males, if it
may be true that the males are more modified in mere
outward aspect in view of certain necessities. It is

* Brooks's Heredity, p. 241.
+p. 218.

180 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

open to Dr. Brooks to say that this is an exceptional
case wholly ; but we did not understand his expression
above to apply to whole species as exceptions, but
only to individuals or groups of individuals within the
species ; and certainly as to cuckoos Dr. Brooks has
himself in more than one point suggested this as
regards the species; yet, certainly in this case, the
species as regards females show more of real and
inward modification than the males. Can this possibly
be a reason why the females decrease at such a rate
or the males increase so rapidly ; and how does it
stand in relation to Dr. Brooks’ generalization given
above ?

XXV.

Mr. Romanes writes: ‘From the first Darwin
invited criticism to adduce a single instance, either
in the vegetable or animal kingdom, of a structure or
an instinct which should unquestionably be proved to
be of exclusive use (or benefit) to any species other
than the one presenting it. He even went so far as to
say that if any one instance could be shown he would
surrender his whole theory on the strengthof it... ..

“ Now, as this invitation has been before the world
for so many years, and has not yet been answered by
any naturalist, we may by this time be pretty confi-
dent that it never will be answered. How tremendous,
then, is the significance of this fact in its testimony to
Darwin’s theory... . Therefore, I say, that this
immensely large and general fact speaks with literally
immeasureable force in favour of natural selection, as

Singing Birds Sacrificed. 181
at all events one of the main causes of organic evolu-
tion.” *

Now, with the fact clear in our minds of the
quandary in which Mr. Romanes found himself when
he proposed the question, why Nature had not armed
the small birds with counter-instincts as against that
“strange and cruelinstinct’’ of the cuckoo; and was,
poor man, compelled to the flimsy, and ill-founded
consolation that nature had not done so, because
“comparatively, the deposition of a cuckoo’s egg was
so exceedingly rare an event” that she had not
deemed it worth her while to call in there a counter-
acting instinct. Mr. Romanes certainly could not
have had that fact in mind when he wrote as above in
“ Darwin and after Darwin.” Thecase of the gullible
and gulled little birds by the cuckoo is absolutely a
case where an instinct—Mr. Darwin would call it ‘a
misleading instinct ""—actually makes for the absolute
benefit of another species and not only that, but to
the absolute destruction of the bird’s own progeny
and risk of extinction of the species. ‘‘ Nature had
not called in there,” says Mr. Romanes, ‘‘a counter
instinct;” that is, had left the poor little birds with
no instinct other than to serve the purposes of the
cuckoo—an instinct not counter to that of the cuckoo,
as Mr. Romanes put it, not nearly so adroitly as he
might. From first to last, here is a case, where the
instinct of the little birds not only benefits and is of
use to the cuckoo, and is systematically used by it,
but in the process their own progeny are ruthlessly
sacrificed ; as Goethe says, forcibly, from half-a-dozen
to a dozen singing birds sacrificed for one cuckoo ; for

* Darwin and after Darwin, pp. 286-7.

182 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

the feeding of the aliens prevents a second brood.
The instinct in these little birds unquestionably proves
to be of exclusive use and benefit for another spectes
—the cuckoos.

Mr. John Hancock tells that, in the course of his
watching the young cuckoo turn out eggs and young
of the foster-parents, the hen hedge-sparrow actually
sat on the edge of the nest and unconcernedly saw one of
its own young sent over the side—a thing so counter
to the common instinct that we can only assume a yet
stronger instinct there brought into play—an instinct
of which we can give no explanation—only clearly it
is there. Mr. John Craig remarks precisely to the
same effect. We should indeed be glad if Dr. Russel
Wallace could give such an explanation as we desire
here.

Mr. Tom Speedy tells (Craigmillar, p. 197) of a
young cuckoo which was found by a gentleman, and
taken home to form a pet. It was so voracious that
he would have needed to give his whole time to hunt
for insects, etc., for it. It was never satisfied. To
get rid of it, he gave it to Mr. Dewar, naturalist,
Edinburgh, who kept it on make-shift diet for a fort-
night, when an enthusiastic lady naturalist, Mrs.
Hoyes, of Skelmorlie, asked for it. She put the
cuckoo into a large aviary, as she tells, where ‘‘a-
mong many other birds, were American blue robins.”
She was surprised, when feeding it with meal worms,
and accidentally dropping one, to see a little blue
robin pick it up, and at once pop it into the cuckoo’s
mouth. She subsequently observed that the same
bird fed it regularly, and showed fight to any other
bird that dared to come near it. ‘Instances have

Mrs. Hoyes’ Blue Robin. 183

occasionally been recorded,’ Mr. Speedy goes on,
‘of foster-mothers of cuckoos, in their wild state,
starving themselves to death in their devotion to supply
their gluttonous charge with food, when immediately
a bird, sometimes of another species, would commence
to provide for the young bird.” These statements
have naturally been accepted with reserve, but the
case in point affords some corroboration of their
accuracy.

YOUNG CUCKOO IN MEADOW-PIFIT'S NEST.

Mrs. Hoyes wrote:

“‘T don’t know when I felt the loss of a pet more
than I do the dear devoted blue nurse, which we
found dead this morning. I do most thoroughly
believe that the poor wee bird starved itself to death
in trying to keep the cuckoo satisfied with food. I
have seen it pick up three meal worms at once, when
I threw it about a dozen, in the hope it might take

184 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

one for itself; but no, every one he scrambled for,
went down the cuckoo’s throat, never apparently
swallowing one himself. Strange to say, one of the
Cardinals (Pope, South America) has taken charge of
the cuckoo, and is feeding it well.” ‘ Eventually,”
added Mr. Speedy, “it picked-up its food for itself,
and up till the end of October seemed to thrive, but
on the night of the 30th of that month several de-
grees of frost were encountered, and the following
morning the lady wrote, ‘I saw at once he was
doomed, but his end was so. gentle that he really
seemed to sleep away.’ ”

Dr. Russel \Wallace’s doctrine, that arguments from
creatures under artificial conditions are not absolute
as regards the same creatures in wild nature, may
here apply, but assuredly this present case has the
strictest analogy in ‘wild nature.” JI had oppor-
tunity of watching a wren engaged in the hard
task of feeding a young cuckoo. The cock bird not
putting in an appearance, I supposed it had met with
a mishap and been killed. The wren was actually
starved by the efforts to satisfy the young cuckoo,
and one morning, when happily I was observing, fell
off the branch of a maple tree, dead—the stomach
quiteempty. Before very long (within three-quarters
of an hour), the cries of the young cuckoo, which
were incessant, very loud, and pitiful, brought a
couple of meadow-pipits, who took on themselves
the hard and ungrateful business of feeding the
youngster.

More than this, the above instance, given by Mr.
Tom Speedy, supplemented by observations of my
own, suffice to show that birds of various species

At Headcorn. 185

sacrifice themselves, even to death itself, for the
young cuckoo, in such a manner as they are not
required to do for their own offspring. And even
when they survive the demands made upon them in
feeding such a monster, late broods are made im-
possible, and this must have, on all analogy, a detri-
mental influence on the sexual organs. The instinct
of these birds in this direction is therefore unmis-
takeably one that is from first to last only injurious
to themselves; consequently destructive to them as
a species, whilst to the cuckoo it is absolutely and
entirely beneficial. Cases on cases might be cited
here to prove that, not only do the small birds sacri-
fice themselves for the cuckoos, but actually compete
with each other for the “privilege.” As we correct
this proof we read in The Daily Telegraph the letter
of a correspondent :

‘« By the side of a farmhouse at Headcorn (Kent) a
strange sight may be seen. Some time ago a young
cuckoo was found in a lark’s nest, and placed in a
rabbit hutch. It was carefully fed by hand until a
little wren was seen to pay periodical visits to the
place, and feed the big cuckoo through the wire.
The tiny bird still nourishes its big adopted child, and
a more comical sight it would be hard to imagine
than the large cuckoo flapping its wings with joy and
opening its extensive beak to receive the food its
‘little mother ’ drops into it.”

Really, were it not for their great names, such rea-
soning as that of Mr. Darwin and Mr. Romanes on
this matter—such ignorance, or ignoring of patent
facts, and the going on, going on with fine words, as
Mr. Romanes does above, in favour of a mere theory,

186 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

would not be worth a moment's attention—not to say
analysis and counter-argument. We said at the out-
set of this section that Mr. Darwin found the cuckoo
one of the most difficult creatures he had to tackle;
and we think we have proved it, and deserve the
prize Mr. Darwin and Mr. Romanes were prepared
to give to the man that would present a case where
the instinct of one species is unquestionably proved
to be of exclusive use to a species other than the one
presenting it. But sometimes people are not grateful
for having their demands supplied. We look for no
reward, beyond the gratification of having done the
work. Most assuredly this instinct is not in favour
of the hedge-sparrow, wagtail, meadow-pipit, etc.,
etc., while it is as certainly in favour of the cuckoo.
Mr. Romanes refers to cases ‘‘ where a structure or
an instinct is of primary benefit to its possessor, and
then becomes of secondary benefit to some other
species, on account of the latter being able in some
way or other to utilise its action.” But this most
certainly cannot apply to the cuckoo and her victims
—the primary and secondary benefit as well is all the
cuckoo’s, and benefit is nil for the victimised little
birds, in the sense of use or benefit Mr. Darwin and
Mr. Romanes can intend or imply; and I shall look
most eagerly for the explanations and glosses their
friends, followers, apologists, and defenders will be
able to put on this fact. I do trust they will be more
scientific than poor Mr. Romanes’ effort—wonderful
effort of ingenuity—to account for no counter-instinct
being implanted by Nature in the little birds, as
against the cuckoo, because the deposition of a
cuckoo’s egg was ‘‘ comparatively so exceedingly rare

“ Struck Blind.” 187

an event” that Nature had not thought it worth while
to do anything! After that, the friends and followers
of Mr. Romanes may not find it so very difficult to
follow him.

Wrere I here to go into other cases, I might cite
the instinct of curiosity about ant-lion holes on the
part of certain ants, which seems to me to be all in
favour of the ant-lions, and not at all in favour of the
ants.

In fact, the whole realm of parasitism, alike in
flowers and plants, in insects and in birds, presents an
almost unexampled unexceptional argument against
Darwinism, and a complete answer to Mr. Romanes’
challenge. We read:

‘“The social Hymenoptera—ants, bees, wasps—
well provided with weapons as they are, neither have
the sense to exterminate their enemies, nor do they
seem even to recognise them. In the presence of
their habitual parasites, these insects, in other re-
spects so sagacious, seem to be struck blind.’’ *

Surely here we have an instinct which actually
becomes protective, passively if not actively, and
which is in favour absolutely of the protected species,
and has no benefit or compensation from the pro-
tected for those which protect.

Then there is the sacculina and the crab, which,
by the presence of sacculina, is rendered sterile—
utterly sterile, whether male or female. In the
female where the tail is segmented and flexible, that
tail, which had hitherto protected its own eggs, now
protects only the sacculina, while in the male the tail
(which is normally segmented without being really

* Massart, p. 71.

188 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

flexible) becomes exactly like that of the female. No
man will surely deny that here is a case where an
accommodating instinct, passive if not active, in the
preyed upon becomes absolutely of benefit to the
parasitic species, and of loss and injury only both to
the individual and to the species protecting. Here
are structures which become essentially modified in
favour of an alien parasitic species —just as the
parental instinct in victims of cuckoo become modi-
fied—and one effect of that change of structure is
sterility in both male and female, where instinct of
protection has been assenting and is a cause. The
delicacy and susceptibility of the generative organs
to which Darwin at last awakened are testified by
such vast changes as this as well as by those he
noticed and dwelt on.

In other cases, as well in plants as in animals,
there are nothing short of voluntary (we can use no
other word) self-adaptations to the entertainment of
the parasite.

There are certain blind beetles (Staphylinid@ ) found
in anthills living at the expense of the ant commun-
ity, and, so far as can be ascertained, yield no service
or benefit whatever to the ants in return. The in-
stinct of the ants, which tolerates and leads them
even to protect the beetles, is surely an instinct en-
tirely in favour of the beetles, and of no service to
the ants.

‘* Although the fact is not yet proved,” says Van
Beneden, ‘“‘it is at any rate very likely that at an
earlier period there had subsisted between these
species and the ants some kind of mutualist relation
analogous to that which still exists between ants and

Dr. Roget’s Position. 189

aphides. Little by little this relation has ceased,
until the animals found in anthills to-day have be-
come traditional parasites, tolerated through the iner-
tia of custom on account of the services formerly
rendered by their ancestors.” *

This is a very good speculative guess instead of a
satisfactory explanation; and if it is not well-found,
it is, at all events, suggestive of how close, according
to Professor Van Beneden, is insect parasitism to the
inert outstanding cases of filthy human parasitism—
such, for instance, as the “bearers of the king’s
stools” in pre-revolutionary France, and the exis-
tence, up to a certain day when it was commuted for
nigh £20,000, of a master of the falcons in England
and to-day of a master of the buckhounds. How
near human nature runs to insect and other nature!
Here the perverted instinct of Englishmen leads
them not only to tolerate parasites, but to bow down
before them as the Egyptians of old before the dung-
beetle!

In the case of the little birds and cuckoos we have
had brought before us in the actions of the former
what is decisively in the teeth of pre-Darwinian
theory as of the Darwinian. Thus Dr. Roget put it
that ‘‘ the individual and the species were preserved
not by slow and uncertain calculations of prudence,
but by innate faculties, prompted by an unerring im-
pulse to the performance of the actions required for
those ends.”+ It is something to find an instance and
argument that equally runs directly counter to both!
But, on this reasoning, the inevitable act of the small

* Animal Parasitism, p. 117.
+ Bridgwater Treatise, ii, p. 514.

190 Darwin and Romances dealt with.

bird, should invariably be to turn out, build over, or
puncture the cuckoo’s egg to prevent hatching, and
one or other of the victimised little birds could unfail-
ingly do so, as some among them now do.

And finally, we ask, and ask seriously, how this
bears on what is called the ‘survival of the fittest ”
—the little birds that will most successfully bear the
heavy tax of feeding the big, gutsy cuckoo for so long
a period, are, speaking reasonably, those that would
most successfully have reared their own young: and,
being healthy, strong and enduring, have had strong,
healthy progeny—the “ fittest” in view of the general
qualities of their own species. A clear and explicit
answer to this argument will oblige. But, indeed,
Mr. Darwin himself anticipated the ground on which
we here stand. ‘‘ Many instincts,” he says, ‘are so
wonderful that this development will probably appear
to the reader a difficulty sufficient to overcome my
whole theory.’’*

These extraordinary powers in the young monster,
the alien intruded cuckoo, on which we dwelt in the
earlier part, seem to work on the victimised adult
birds, many of then, with something like fascination.
They actually lose all sense of protective duty towards
their own young in an admiring wonder of this over-
grown, greedy glutton, and, when all the legitimate
progeny have gone, they devote themselves to feeding
and attending to him with what seems a sense of pro-
found pride and joy.

Here we refer once again (for it demands reiteration

* Origin of Species, p. 205.

Not only one Instinct defeated. IgI

for its vast importance), to the utter indifference with
which the hen hedge-sparrow, as Mr. John Hancock
so circumstantially tells, sat and saw one of her own
progeny edged over the side of the nest by the young
cuckoo. Mr. John Craig notes precisely the same
thing. This shows such an extraordinary departure
from all that we have hitherto regarded as parental
instinct in birds and highly developed mammals alike,
that it is not hard for us to believe that in some cases
the passive procedure under such an outrage may
become active, and that as Jenner said long ago, the
foster-parents may ‘themselves sometimes turn out
unhatched eggs from the nest after the young cuckoo
is hatched.”

One extraordinary element in the matter is, that
this big and unwieldly nestling, which had shown
such unexampled powers in throwing out eggs and
young from the nest when but a few days old, be-
comes, in a sense, the more dependent and helpless
as he outgrows the nest, and when he has found
strength to leave it, keeps up an endless demand on
the victimised birds for weeks: so that they are hin-
dered from breeding again, when they otherwise
would certainly do so. Thus you have not only one
ordinary instinct or two overborne and superseded by
what seem unnatural and extraordinary instincts, but
here is another. If in the victimised birds this latter
instinct was not overcome, the young cuckoo would
even then fall a victim to hunger: if the parent
victimised birds returned on their true instinct, the
real end of all the cuckoo’s endeavours would be
defeated—the young would not survive. But that
through such a long period you should find birds of

192 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

many kinds voluntarily acting thus right in the teeth
of all we should call ordinary or primary instincts in
them is really surpassing strange: and no explanation
I have as yet read exactly supplies at every point what
is demanded. Certainly, as we have seen, the expla-
nations of Mr. Darwin and Mr. Romanes are not

WAGTAIL FEEDING YOUNG CUCKOO,

only unsatisfactory, but most inefficient, feeble, in-
ept, and even ignorant and misleading, since even a
faithful purview of the facts was not attained by
either.

Since in one end of the room in which I wrote I
had my aviary, I was able to notice some things
which may not be generally noticed. Among half-a-
dozen or more canaries I had a hen linnet, a cock
goldfinch, and a cock mule. These, even when

“ Out of Nature.” 193

breeding was going on with the canaries, had their
free fly about all day, and agreed well with the
canaries—the hen linnet, unpaired, especially taking
a vast deal of interest in the sitting and in the young
ones when they came. But the point on which |
mean to dwell is this, that these young birds, the
very day after their eyes were open, knew unhesi-
tatingly whenever either of these three birds went
near the nest where they were, that they were not
their father or mother, and drew down their heads
with surprising celerity; whereas, when father or
mother came, they set up their heads to be fed.
Now, as the goldfinch mule was not so strikingly un-
like the spangled or lizard canary cock, this decision
in recognition surprised me, and that from the very
first, and the thing never altered so long as the birds
were in the nest; though, after flight, they showed
no particular aversion to either of the three birds,
and were indeed very friendly with the hen linnet—
the unlikest to them of all. If observation should
prove that this is generally the case, then the ap-
parent inability of certain wild birds to detect the
difference between their own progeny and the young
cuckoo is all the more wonderful, and, in fact, ‘ out
of nature.”

XXVI.

Since Mr. Darwin, indeed naturalists have become
all too fond of «may be’s’’— which as we Scotch school
boys were wont to say are not good honey bees. The
determination, for example, of these parrots in New
Zealand, called keas, to sheep—killing and blood-

ie)

194 Darwin and Romanes dealt with.

sucking, is a little hard to justify from certain points
of view of theory; but certain good folks must find
ways to explain it by ‘may be’s.” Thus Dr. H.
Woodward, quoted by Prof. St. George Mivart, sug-
gests that these keas in former days may have fed
upon a species of dinornis, perching on their backs as
they do now on the backs of the sheep ’’*—a sugges-
tion for which, so far as we are aware, there is not
the least ground in any known fact whatever. Dr. H.
Woodward only boldly imagines it. So far as we
know there is not, as said above, a single fact in
favour of this presumption. We have facts that
justify us in tracing a certain process in the transfer-
ence of frugivorous parrots into sheep destroyers.

1. The Darwinians say that the keas found offal
and entrails of sheep thrown about and skins hung
out, and pecking these over hit on what they came
to regard as tit-bits. This is not the case, and is
denied by Mr. Taylor White, Mr. Huddlestone, and
others.

2. The keas do not eat flesh of sheep at all, and
certainly not dead flesh, but suck the blood of the
living sheep, leaving torn carcases behind them.

3. The next step clearly was by conference to
decide what was the most effective means of securing
these tit-bits from the living sheep, and the agreement
was that united effort by bands was the most likely
process, which the said practical experience of New
Zealand farmers shows it was.

4. Has Dr. Woodward anything to favour the idea
that the dznornis was specially fed up, and fattened ?

* St. George Mivart's Birds: Elements of Ornithology. Keas
ad loco.

This Confirmed Habit. 195

If not, the analogy fails, and fails wholly on the most
important point.

This confirmed habit of “ probably it was,” “it
may be,” “it might be,” ‘it must be,” and so on,
with Darwin and his followers—the reading is always
of the subjective notion into the fact—is precisely
what gives Professor St. George Mivart his strong
points against the Darwinians, especially in his very
bold and original “ Origin of Human Reason.”

PART IV.

EVIDENCE FROM ALL PARTS OF THE
WORLD.

THE FACTS AND COMPARATIVE SURVEY WHOLLY AGAINST

DARWIN AND THE EVOLUTIONISTS.

XXVIII.
THE SPANISH EVIDENCE,

From the facts already given it will be seen that
verified observations in different countries show that
there can be no manner of doubt cuckoo’s eggs do
vary within a certain range; and there are facts con-
nected with varieties of the cuckoo family which are
strangers to our island, or very rarely seen there,
such as add new force to this position.

Take first the great spotted cuckoo (Coccystes glan-
darius), only two of which have, in 1849 and 1870,
been found brooding in this country. Its eggs so
clearly resemble those of the pies (Pica mauritanica
and Cyanopica cooki), in the nests of which they are
found, that even expert zoologists have been deceived
by them, only to discover the truth when the cuckoo’s
embryo has been extracted from the supposed pie’s
egg.

The great spotted cuckoo in Spain was so far very
carefully observed by I.ord Lilford. He tells us that
he more than once found three eggs of the cuckoo in
one nest, with four or five of those of the magpie,
and that once he actually met with eight cuckoo’s
eggs to five of the magpie. He also makes the very
significant statement that the eggs of the cuckoo in
all these cases were more advanced towards hatching
than those of the magpie. He only once, he says,
found there a cuckoo’s egg in a raven’s nest.* Now,

* Lord Lilford's actual words are:
“The greatest number of cuckoo's eggs found by us in any
one nest was eight, with five of the magpie.’ It is almost in-

200 The World-Evidence.

what a pity it was that Lord Lilford failed to watch
the later results there.

That the cuckoo’s eggs, i.e., in these cases, were
invariably more advanced towards hatching than the
magpie’s shows wonderful adaptation in one respect ;
for the young cuckoos, which grow very fast, coming
first, would have an easy business of throwing out
the young magpies as they were hatched. But this
repeated finding of three eggs in one nest, and in one
case as many as eight to five of the magpie, sug-
gests a question that has often been asked. Do the
young cuckoos distinguish in favour of their own
kind, and abstain the one from trying to turn the other
out? Do they combine in action against the right-
ful occupants of the nest, or do they not? and, if so,
how does the matter end? Do the young cuckoos
fight it out, one against another, till the strongest
only is left, or are they armed with a special instinct
against warring upon each other? The rare cases in
which two cuckoo’s eggs have been found in the same
nest in England has suggested the question. Lord
Lilford’s report emphasizes it. We wish some natu-
ralist in Spain would carefully investigate the matter,
and let us know; for we are all the more curious that
Lord Lilford has, to our grief, passed beyond our
asking of him for further light on this special point—
on which light is, indeed, very much wanted, as on
so many others connected with the cuckoo. If all the

credible that the pies should bear this wholesale victimization,
unless, indeed, the cuckoos took out eggs for those they put in.
Manuel de la Torre, the royal keeper at Madrid, knew of in-
stances where as many as four eggs of the cuckoo had been
found in one magpie’s nest.

New Zealand Cuckoos. 201

eight cuckoos were hatched, how could the pies pos-
sibly have fed so many ravenous young ones—the
young cuckoos being almost insatiable in their de-
mands for food—even one causing a heavy tax on
hedge-sparrows, and wagtails, and pipits ?

XXVIII.
NEW ZEALAND EVIDENCE.

Tue evidence from other places, and more especially
from New Zealand, over large spaces of which we
have a temperature and climate not so very different
from our own, may help to throw a little light on
some points. There are two cuckoos in New Zealand
which are distinctly parasitic, but in very different
degrees and by different methods. \We may accept
the fullest and most trustworthy account of these:
Sir W. L. Buller, in his able and beautiful book on
the Birds of New Zealand, tells of the long-tailed
cuckoo there—how it comes from the warm islands
of the South Pacific, stays the summer, and breeds
in New Zealand ; how it is parasitic chiefly, if not ex-
clusively, on the grey warbler (Gerygone flaviventris) ;
how the young are fed and nourished by these small
birds. It has been found by him at Otaho (in the
north island) as late as the first week in April—
coming in the end of September or beginning of
October. It isa confirmed egg-eater—more especially
of the eggs of the tui, or parson-bird, and these birds,
whenever they see this cuckoo, mob it, and follow
and persecute it. Sir W. Buller, from various cir-

202 The World-Evidence.

cumstances, believes that the bird incubates its egg
or eggs, but leaves its young to be fed by other birds,
who take care of and feed the youngsters, moved by
their piteous cries. He does not believe that the
cuckoo could possibly deposit the egg in certain
nests, which, by the way, he holds, could not support
the weight of the young cuckoo if they did the egg,
which is large and heavy, and certainly his idea is
that these small birds could never hatch it: it is
about 1°25 by 1°15. One peculiar point is that young
birds are frequently met with in the end of March or
later, but it seems probable that these are only soli-
tary individuals hatched too late to permit of their
joining in the return migration.

The shining cuckoo, he tells, acts somewhat differ-
ently from the long-tailed cuckoo as to breeding, etc.,
and it is a very much smaller bird—the victim in its
case also being generally the grey warbler; but its
egg is much smaller than the other, only ‘8 of an
inch in length by ‘5 in breadth, and, in this case as
with ours, the true progeny are ejected by the young
cuckoo.

The Rev. R. Taylor tells that he discovered the
nest of a grey warbler in his garden shrubbery, con-
taining several eggs, and among them a large white
one, which he correctly assigned to the shining cuckoo.

‘In due time all the eggs were hatched ; but after
the lapse of a day or two, the young cuckoo was the
sole tenant of the nest, and the dead bodies of the
others were found lying on the ground below. At
length the usurper left the nest, and for many days
after both of the foster-parents were incessantly on
the wing from morning till night, catering for their

Sir W. Buller’s Views. 203

charge, whose constant piping cry served only to
stimulate their activity.”

Sir W. Buller adds (p. 29) that an egg of this
cuckoo, taken years ago from a grey warbler’s nest
by himself in the Maruka scrub, was of a pale creamy
colour, and “another, which was laid by a captive
bird in my possession, is pure white.”

Now, here the question arises, how has the shining
cuckoo come to be so much smaller, and to have an
egg so much smaller than its relative, the long-tailed
cuckoo? Is the latter only on the way, by a small
instalment, to the point which the shining cuckoo has
secured, or what? Has the shining cuckoo out-
stripped its congeners in the race because of more
cleverness, adaptability, or what? Or has the long
tailed cuckoo, more astute than he seems, discovered
a short cut, and finding that by it he can fully secure
his object, does not need nor want to go any further.
If certain little birds can be found—as indeed we have
some grounds for thinking is the case with certain of
them in this country—ready to nurse and feed the
young cuckoo, though they have not brooded him,
then does it not seem rather a waste of energy and
knowledge that our cuckoos have not taken more
advantage of it, and caused themselves all the effort
and pain which cannot but have been associated with
the process, gradual and long continued, by which
the egg was reduced from normal size to the size we
now find it ?

The egg-eating on the part of the long-tailed cuckoo
and his being mobbed by little birds as the cuckoos
are in this country, anew and from another point,
emphasizes the question whether at a certain stage in

204 The World-Evidence.

this country the cuckoos may not have been egg-
eating on a large scale, as they are now on a more
limited one; the mobbing by small birds in return for
that injury remaining a witness of it.

In New Zealand, too, there are instances of what
are called belated young birds not being able, for one
reason or another, to join in the migration.

Here then, in the long-tailed New Zealand cuckoos,
we have an exact connecting link between the
American cuckoos and ours—a species which broods
‘its own eggs, but having done so, casts the young on
the care of others to be fed and tended. By this, the
perpetuation of the species seems to be just as fully
secured as by the more thoroughgoing tactics of Cuculus
canorus. Butif so, Cuculus canorus takes on himself,
and has for long ages taken on himself, more labour
and effort, outside what we may.call the line of instinc-
tive action, than is really necessary to secure his end.
Or is it, then, that those cuckoos which have stopped
short of the complete parasitism of canorus, are but
yet on the way towards the point of perfection and
completeness to which he has attained? Either this,
or it must be confessed that, in his perfection and
completeness, evolution is not justified of its children,
because we have here a machinery, so to say, most
complicated and involved—a machinery, which
through its very fineness, sometimes breaks down,
whereas, so far as we can learn, a less complicated
machinery—less affecting habit and function—has
been found to secure fully the end desired. If in
canorus you have the survival of the fit, on account
of distinctive and complete organisation and modifica-
tion of function, then in the New Zealand long-tails

A Monster Cuckoo's Egg. 205

you have the “survival of the fittest,” inasmuch as
they survive, and have not undergone some (or many)
of the modifications manifested in the others.

XXIX.
THE AUSTRALIAN EVIDENCE.

Mr. Joun GouLp, in his Birds of Australia, gives
about a dozen different varieties of the cuckoo as
existing there—all of them parasitic. He says:

“All the Australian species, with the exception of
the members of the genus Centropus, are parasitic ;
the huge Scythrops, and the diminutive Chrysococcyx
alike depositing their eggs in the nests, and entrusting
their young to the fostering care of other birds. The
Scythrops is said sometimes to lay its egg in the nest
of the piping crow (Gymunorhina tibicen), and I have
known many instances of the eggs of Chalcites being
deposited in the domed-shaped nest of Maluri.”

Cacomantis pallidus is apparently nearest to our
Cuculus canorus ; and its eggs, about seven-eighths of
an inch long by five-eighths broad, is of cream colour,
and speckled all over with markings of brown. The
egg of the monster Scythrops Nove-Hollande@ is one
inch and eleven-sixteenths long by one inch and a
quarter broad, of a light stone colour, with irregular
blotches of reddish brown, many of which were of a
darker hue, and appeared as if beneath the surface of
the shell. Unfortunately, Mr. Gould was not able
closely to discriminate the eggs, and expressed the
hope that the rising ornithologists of Australia would
do it.

206 The World-Evidence.

Has this, in more recent years, been systematically
done? And is it now an absolutely settled point
that the big, most magnificent, large-billed Scythrops
Nove-Hollande@ is parasitic with its monster eggs;
and, if so, which are the birds on whom it manages
to impose such an egg? Mr. Gould speaks of it, as
we have seen, positively, at one place as parasitic;
but in another he is doubtful. It is clearly ascer-
tained, however, that this bird, though it migrates,
does not migrate very far, as it had not, when Mr.
Gould wrote, been seen out of Australia, nor even
on the north coast of that country.* So far as mi-
gration is concerned, the same thing, according to
Mr. Gould, applies to the ash-coloured cuckoo (Cu-
culus cineraceus). The shining cuckoo is the smallest
of the Australian cuckoos, and mostly deposits its
eggs in domed nests, with a very small hole for an
entrance. The egg of this species is eleven-sixteenths
of an inch long by half an inch in breadth. The
brush cuckoos of Australia (Cuculus insperatus) are
important, because, more clearly than any other
variety, they unite the genus Cuculus with the Chal-
cites.

Now, one of the most important questions that
arises is the fact of Scythrops being parasitic. If it
is, with such an egg, what is its process, and what
are the birds victimised by it? Clearly it has not yet,
through any long process, reduced its egg below the

* Captain G. E. Shelley, in his exhaustive and most valuable
section of the British Museum Catalogue of Birds (1891), gives
as the area of the giant Scythrops Nove-Hollanda—“ Australia,
New Guinea, Duke of York Island, New Britain, Ké Islands,
Bouru, Obi, Batchian, Terndte, Ceram, Celebes, and Flores."

Mr. Broinowski's Observations. 207

proportionate size; and if in spite of that, it is para-
sitic, and so survives, have we not here another
ground for saying that the reduction in size in egg of
Canorus is less necessary than might at first sight
appear?

In so far we have the results of later research and
observations in the Companion to Gould's Birds, by
Mr. Sylvester Diggles. He says that the channel
bell cuckoo (Scythrops Nove-Hollanda) lays its eggs
in nests of other birds, and principally those of birds
much smaller than itself. It is migratory, appearing
in October and departing in June—eight months; so
that pressure of time could have nothing to do with
its parasitism.

Mr. G. J. Broinowski does not say decidedly if it
is migratory and, if it is, to what extent itis so. We
can but infer from his words that it is not, but resi-
dent there. He gives asits habitats—“ inland portion
of Australia generally,” which looks to us as though
it were practically resident. Certainly, it does not
migrate over sea. Its note, Mr. Broinowski adds, is
quite different from that of our common cuckoo.

Mr. Broinowski tells of Cacomantis flabelliformis,
or fantailed cuckoo, that it lays but one egg in a nest
of what is almost always a smaller variety of bird.
It is migratory, spending the summer in Tasmania,
and returning to Australia in January and February.
But it is evident that if it lays but one egg, it has
abundant time to brood and hatch it and attend to
the young bird; so that pressure of time for migra-
tion can have nothing to do with its parasitism either.

Thus one most important thing learned from certain
of the Australian cuckoos, which are as pronouncedly

208 The World-Evidence.

parasitic as ours are, is this, that pressure as to time
allowed, owing to long migration, does not exist.
Certain of these birds are in the “ breeding places”
from the middle of September till the very end of
February or the middle of March, and in some
seasons they have been found in numbers there in
the beginning of April, while others are there from
October to June, so that, by no stretch of imagina-
tion, could Jenner's reasoning be applied to them.
They are from five to six months, up even to eight
months, in these “ breeding places’ in Australia—
sometimes are resident, and again when they migrate
do not migrate very far—only to some degrees north-
ward in many cases, because insect life is then more
abundant there. And just in the measure that mi-
grating distance is reduced you have the instinct
weakened as seen in what are called our own resident
birds, which always tend to move with a certain con-
stancy. Thus we have, in Australian cuckoos of
parasitic habit, as presented to us by Mr. John Gould
and his successors, a set of phenomena which utterly
knocks on the head all Mr. Darwin’s reasonings de-
rived from Jenner, proving absolutely that a certain
shortness of time can have really nothing to do with
the original strong and determined instinct to para-
sitism in the cuckoo. The New Zealand evidence
confirms it. Sir W. L. Buller tells us that both the
parasitic cuckoos of New Zealand are often to be
found there in the end of September or beginning of
October, and are to be seen in the end of March,
sometimes so late as the first week in April.

Sir W. L. Buller has conclusively identified the
bronze and the shining cuckoos. They are migratory,

Force of Hereditary Instinct. 209

but are in the breeding places for six months or so.
Mr. Broinowski has this very suggestive passage in
one of his volumes :

“‘The force of hereditary instinct is never more
strongly evidenced than when we find it asserting
itself in some immaterial trait that has no effect upon
the present, except as a mark of evolution, but clearly
points back to the discarded habits of earlier races.
Among the Centropi we found the parasitic custom
unknown; each pair made their own dome-shaped
nest, and performed the task of rearing their young
like any other virtuous birds. The Eudynamis cut it-
self free from all domestic obligations, and left its
young to be tended by kindly crows; thus proving
that there is a wide racial gap between the two
genera. The gap we may consider bridged over in
the chain of evolution by the Chrisococcyx ; for the
shining cuckoo, though a true parasite, is usually
found to deposit its egg in a dome-shaped nest having
a very small entrance. In New South Wales, the
Malurus cyaneus and the Geobasileus chrysorrhous are
forced to be foster-parents. Mr. Bennett, in writing
of the Lucidus, states that he has found the egg in the
nest of Acanthea chrysorhiga,and that he has seen a
nest of this bird with five eggs, that of the cuckoo
being deposited in the centre of the group, so as to
ensure its receiving the warmth imparted by the
sitting bird, and thus less likely to be addled. He
also narrates the following incident: A white shafted
flycatcher (Rhipidura albiscapa) was shot at Ryde,
near Sydney, in the act of feeding a solitary young
bird in its nest, which, when examined, was found to
be the chick of the bronze cuckoo of the colonists.”

P

210 The World-Evidence.

«The young cuckoo,” he adds, ‘‘invariably kills
and throws out the rightful nestlings. It is strictly
migratory, reaching New Zealand between the 7th
and 21st of September, and remaining as late as
April, abundant time in which to hatch and rear a
brood.”

XXX,
THE EGYPTIAN EVIDENCE,

We have grounds yet more relative, if such are
wanted, in view of our point against Mr. Darwin and
Mr. Romanes and their followers. The great spotted
cuckoo of Egypt is there resident, and yet it is purely
parasitic, laying its eggs in the nest of the hooded
crow, which there lays about the same time. Here
it is clear, absolutely clear, that pressure due to dates
of migration can have no place—can have no bearing
as predisposing to the parasitic habit—the cause of
which must in this case be sought elsewhere, as we
believe it must be in the case of our own canorus.
Captain Shelley is our authority, and he thus writes
in his Birds of Egypt :

“« The great spotted cuckoos (Coccystes glandarius )
are resident in Egypt and Nubia. They are by no
means shy, and will often sit motionless on a bough
while one walks beneath the tree. In Egypt they
breed at the same time as the hooded crow, and in-
variably select a nest of that species in which to
deposit their eggs.” * Von Heuglin (Ornith. N.O.
Africa, p. 287) is of opinion that they first lay their

* pp. 162-3. Edition, 1872.

Canon Tristram's Facts. 211

eggs on the ground, and then carry them in their
beaks to the nest they have selected, in exactly the
same manner as the common cuckoo does.

XXXI.
THE PALESTINEAN EVIDENCE.

Canon Tristram, in his most valuable book, The
Birds of Palestine, writes as follows about the cuckoos
there:

“The cuckoo (canorus) returns to Palestine at the
end of March or beginning of April, when it is par-
ticularly obnoxious to the bush babbler (Crateropus
chalybeus), which clamorously pursues it in the Jordan
Valley. It is spread generally over the whole
country. In Algeria the cuckoos (Coccystes glan-
darius) deposit their eggs in the nest of the Mauri-
tanian magpie, the eggs of which they very closely
resemble. In the Holy Land I have found them
only in the nest of the hooded crow (Corvus cornix),
and that very frequently. No doubt they will also
be found in the nest of the Syrian jay, which is com-
mon in districts like Carmel, where there are no
crows, and where the spotted cuckoo abounds.”

In a letter with which Canon Tristram has kindly
favoured me, in reply to my queries about the date of
cuckoos’ leaving the Holy Land, he writes :

«‘] cannot state the exact date of departure of the
cuckoo from the Holy Land, because September is
the only month which I have not spent in natural
history work in the country. I have noticed the

212 The World-Evidence.

cuckoo in the beginning of August, but have never
seen it in October.

‘“‘T have taken many eggs of Coccystes glandarius
in Algeria, and a few in Palestine, but I have always
found the eggs of the foster-parent sound and good.
I have found four cuckoo’s eggs, and only two of the
African magpie in the nest, and all fresh. In Pales-
tine there are no magpies, and we only found the
cuckoo’s eggs in carrion crows’ or jackdaws’ nests—
not in jays’, though these are very common. (This
does not prove that they do not use the jay’s.) I
have myself taken a blue cuckoo’s egg from a night-
ingale’s nest, at home.

“On referring to an old note, I see I had a cuckoo
of the year brought me in October. This was in
Galilee.”

If, therefore, we say that in Palestine the common
cuckoo is found there from the 1st of April to, say,
the end of August, this gives five clear months—
abundant time to rear a brood.

As a proof of how well certain of the Glandarius
species can match their eggs with those of the birds
in whose nests they lay them, the following may be
cited from Professor Alfred Newton:

‘In the autumn of 1857, I had received from Mr.
Tristram all the eggs collected by him in Algeria
during the preceding season. When they were un-
packed, it appeared that there were two more speci-
mens of the egg of a large North-African cuckoo
(Oxylophus glandarius) than I had been led by him
to expect. On examination I found that the first two
eggs of this species which had been obtained by him
so much resembled eggs of the magpie of the country

Mr. H. Bowker’s Observations. 213

(Pica mauritanica), in the nests of which they had
been found, that, skilful oologist as he was, they had
passed, even to his practised, unsuspecting eye, as
those of the latter bird.” *

XXXII.
THE AFRICAN EVIDENCE.

Soutu Africa certainly boasts its full compliment
of cuckoos; but it is to be regretted that in Layard’s
Birds of South Africa, though edited by Dr. Bowdler
Sharpe, information is not systematically given as to
habits of parasitism, etc. — points which it would
have been so important for comparative ornithologists
to be advised about. Only about two, indeed, out of
more than a dozen have we distinct and clear infor-
mation on these heads.

The black-crested cuckoo is stated to deposit eggs
in nests of the geelgat (Pycnonotus capensis) and
Sigelus silens.

Mr. H. Bowker observes about the black - and-
white cuckoo (Coccystes jacobinus) :

“This cuckoo lays in the nest of the black-forked
spreo (Dicrurus musicus) and also in that of the
woodpecker. It looks after its young to see that the
foster-parents are attentive to them. I once watched
a woodpecker’s nest, and when the nurses brought
food to the nest, they were always followed by one of
these birds, who, after the woodpeckers left, invari-
ably looked into the nest to see if all was right, and

* Zoologist, 1873, p. 3508.

214 The World-Evidence.

then sat near until the return of the woodpeckers,
when the same thing was repeated. On examining
the nest I found four fine young cuckoos in it.” *

Mr. Layard quotes Le Vaillant about the golden
cuckoo that it lays a white egg, and states that he
gives an account of the manner in which it is carried
in the mouth, to be placed in the nests of these birds
which are selected as foster-parents for its neglected
offspring. +

The black-and-white cuckoo of South Africa, para-
sitic mainly on the woodpeckers, thus, like the great
spotted cuckoo, does not limit the number of its eggs
intruded into one nest even to two, but puts the lot
into one nest, where clearly the young do not contest
with each other the right to it, making thus the
watching for the parents easy.

AXNITI.
THE INDIAN EVIDENCE.

Tue Indian evidence for one thing proves, that in
the case of certain parasitic cuckoos there, the eggs
are so like to those of the birds in whose nests they
are dropped, that they are very apt to be overlooked:
and, secondly, that eggs of cuckoos, deposited at
such times as the eggs of victimised birds are not
ready, are not uncommon either; which just shows
that if the cuckoos, there as well as here, cannot find
the exact nest ready, they are compelled to take just
what they can get.

* Layard, p. 159.
+ Layard, p.'154.

Miss Cockburn's Evidence. 215

And, thirdly, that in India—as there are, indeed,
some grounds for believing was once the case with
our common cuckoos—certain of the cuckoos there
pierce the eggs in nests which do not suit them, and
suck out their contents; all which has an illustrative
bearing, more or less direct, on our own cuckoos and
their habits in certain ways. Fourthly, that in India,
Cuculus canorus—which remains there for full six
months—affords yet further proof that pressure of
time, due to migration, cannot be, as Mr. Darwin and
Mr. Romanes have said, the one sufficing motive to the
parasitism it practises; and, fifthly, that some para-
sitic Indian cuckoos do not throw out the young of
foster-parents, and others have at least two broods a
year—the second eggs being laid before all the first
brood are flown.

Here are some cases under the first head :

I. Miss Cockburn, for long, finding no eggs that
she could identify as those of the Indian plain cuckoo
(Cacomantis passerinus), thought that it did not breed
in the Nilghri Hills. But, at last, she had the fullest
and most satisfactory evidence that it did,—its egg,
however, being such an exact imitation of the com-
mon wren warbler, that it was not at all recognised.
Miss Cockburn’s statement causes Mr. Adams to say:

‘‘ Miss Cockburn’s interesting note on the breeding
of this species fully explains what I thought at the
time to be a case of fraud on the part of some of our
native fellow-subjects. Towards the end of Sep-
tember, 1866, when in Lucknow, I had small boys
collecting nests for me, and on two occasions nests of
Prinia inornata were brought to me, containing an
egg like that of Prinia inornata, but slightly larger ;

216 The World-Evidence.

in fact, exactly like that described and sent by Miss
Cockburn. I accused the boys of having taken the
eggs from some other nest, but they maintained they
had not done so. I did not believe them then, but I
do now.” *

So like are the eggs of the crested pied cuckoo of
India to those of the babblers (Argya and Crateropus),
usually chosen, that they are hardly distinguishable.
In colour they are a spotless blue, darker or lighter in
different specimens, but all are highly glossy, and
closely resemble the eggs of Argya caudata, in whose
nest the cuckoos’ eggs are laid. Col. \WV. Vincent
Legge says:

“Even from the eggs of Crateropus malcolini, in
whose nests they are, in Upper India, most commonly
found, it is only by their somewhat diminutive size
and very round oval shape that they can be distin-
guished. This babbler itself, however, sometimes, I
believe, lays abnormally small eggs of this shape, so
that the only specimens I fully rely on are those that
have been taken out of the oviduct of the female.
These are very round ovals, recalling in shape the
eggs of the bee-eaters.” t

If and Il. Colonel Butler, who paid particular
attention to the crested pied cuckoo of India (Coc-
cystes jacobinus), says:

‘« They seem to deposit their eggs in the babblers’
nests at any time, quite regardless of the condition
of the eggs of the nest in which they are laid. I
have often noticed, also, that when they discover a
nest which does not suit them to lay in, they almost

* Hume, ii, p. 387.
+ Hume, ii, p. 391.

The Indian Koel. 217

invariably destroy the eggs of the babbler by driving
a hole into them with their beaks, and sucking a por-
tion or the whole of their contents.”*

The female koel (from ku-i/, its cry), as has long
been known in India, deposits her eggs almost ex-
clusively in the nest of the common crow (Corvus
splendens); more rarely in that of the carrion crow
(Corvus culminatus). ‘‘ She only, in general, lays one
egg in each crow’s nest, and mostly, but not always,
destroys the egg or eggs of the crow at the time of
depositing her own. It is a popular belief that the
crow discovers the imposture when the young koel is
nearly full-grown, and ejects it from the nest; but
this I do not think is usually the case, for I have
frequently seen the crow feeding the young koel
after it had left the nest. Some observers declare
that the old female koel often watches the nest in
which she has deposited her eggs, and when the birds
are full-grown, entices them away, or, if expelled,
looks after them and feeds them for a few days; but
I doubt if this be the general practice. . . The crows
seem to know full well that they are cuckolded by
the koel, for at times you see them pursuing these
cuckoos with the utmost energy, and Mr. Frith, as
quoted by Blyth, states that one dashed itself against
a window and was killed, when pursued by a
crow.”’ +

The koel (Eudynamys honorata) is common in the
Andamans and Nicobars, having been observed by
Colonel Tytler, besides being frequently heard by

* Hume, ii, p. 389.
t Ferdon, i, p. 344-

218 The World-Evidence.

him calling in the woods, and its behaviour is exactly
like that of those of the mainland. *

Mr. Blyth himself may be quoted here—the more
that he can support his statement by the very weighty
opinion of Mr. Frith:

‘‘ The koel’s egg bears a very remarkable resem-
blance to that of the crow—only smaller. The speci-
men measures an inch-and-a-half in length, and its
colour is slightly bluish olive green, rather pale than
otherwise, with numerous reddish brown spots (much
as in some blackbirds’ eggs), and an indistinct zone
of these near the large end.’ Mr. Frith has never
found more than one koel’s egg in a nest, and has
only met with it in those of the two Indian crows.” +

Mr. R. Thompson says of the Indian canorus :

‘‘ Lays in May and June. I found one or two birds
in the nests of pipits at Almorah some years ago.

In July the birds are well on the wing and betake
themselves to lofty trees.” ¢

And iet it be noticed that the old cuckoos are still
there, and for weeks afterwards are there.

IV. Nor can we disguise the fact that India pre-
sents evidence confirmatory on this head relating to
the Cuculus canorus in India. We are told that in
certain parts of India it breeds and remains there six
months. Dr. Scully says:

‘‘*The common cuckoo is found in great numbers
in the Valley of Nepaul during six months of the
year—from April to October. It frequents the cen-
tral wooded forests on the hillsides up to 6,000 feet,

* Hume's Stray Feathers, i, p. 63.
+ Asiatic Soc. Fournal., vol., 1843, Pp. 295.
t Hume's Nests and Eggs, ii, p, 380.

Indian Cuculus Canorus. 219

rarely ascending to 7,000 feet. It lays in May and
June, generally selecting the nests of Pratincola
maura and occasionally that of Pomatorhinus cry-
throgenys.” *

Jerdon, indeed, does not think that any of the
Indian cuckoos really migrate from India.

“JT believe that none of the Indian species migrate
entirely from India; but they wander about a good
deal at different times, all the true cuckoos breeding
in the hills, some of them perhaps also in the plains.
After the breeding is over, they appear to scatter
themselves about a good deal over the whole country,
one or two only restricting their range to the limits
of the Himalayan forest.’’}

Clearly, therefore, these common cuckoos in India,
staying there till October, and laying in May and
June, have abundant leisure, even on the extended
time-table of Jenner, to do their own brooding, ten-
dence, and feeding of the young. And when we put
this alongside the fact that, at least one of the Indian
cuckoos is actually resident, and yet that these resi-
dent cuckoos are as persistently parasitic as the
migrants, it does seem as though Mr. Darwin had
absolutely failed to do the needful investigation and
reading here; and in not doing so, he is all the more
blameworthy, and his conduct the more to be repro-
bated, that one of the finest observers and scientific
ornithologists had provided him with full warning not
implicitly to follow Jenner, as he so foolishly did.
This was Mr. Jerdon, who, in Birds of India, pub-
lisded in 1862, wrote as follows:

* Hume's Birds of India, ii, p. 380.
+i, p, 321.

220 The World-Evidence.

“That their migratory habits, as suggested by
Jenner, have anything whatever to do with it, is con-
tradicted by the fact of the instance of many non-
migratory cuckoos (the common Indian koel, for
example), being equally parasitic.*

The Origin of Species, it is true, was first published
in 1859; but in any of the editions after the third,
Mr. Jerdon’s words might have been noticed, and
they certainly are not in the sixth edition, published
in 1872.

But Mr. Darwin cannot be let off so easily for
failing to read, or with purposes ignoring if he had
read, the remarkable reports of Mr. Blyth, in the
Asiatic Soc. Fournal, for the years from 1842—1848
more especially. Some most exceptional cases are
there set down, and facts, which go directly in the
teeth of what Jenner had said—in fact, a body of
observation and experiment which, of itself, amply
suffices to prove that migration has and can have
nothing really to do with the parasitism of the cuckoo,
whilst Mr. Darwin, with his perverse ingenuity, would
fain have made it have everything to do with it. And
the facts—plain facts—are all dead against him.

V. Some other points find confirmation and illus-
tration. Captain Hutton makes the following note
about Cuculus intermedius (the Asiatic cuckoo),
writing from Mussoorie:

‘The natives have an idea that this bird builds its
own nest and rears its young itself. This is erron-
eous; but it evidently arises from the curious fact
that when the young bird is old enough to leave the
nest, the foster-birds feed it no longer, and it is then

* Birds of India, i, p. 321.
P

Captain Hutton’s Facts. 221

supplied by the old cuckoo, or, at all events, by one
of the same species. This ] have myself repeatedly
witnessed, and I think it not improbable that others
of the cuckoo tribe may do the same thing; for it
seems almost incredible that Trochalopterum linea-
tum, in whose nest the egg of C. intermedius is often
dropped could supply so voracious a bird after it had
left the nest, neither could the little hedge-sparrows
of England do so for young Cuculus canorus. At
Jeripanee, below Mussoorie, I have seen the young
cuckoo sitting for hours together on a branch, waiting
for the return of the adult bird, which continued
every now and then to bring supplies of caterpillars
wherewith to satisfy the apparently insatiable appetite
of the nestling, until at last both would fly off to
another spot. To satisfy myself that it was really
this cuckoo that fed the young, I shot one in the very
act, and found it to be no other than our summer
visitant, Cuculus intermedius.” *

The large hawk-cuckoo of India (Hierococcyx
sparveroides ), from Miss Cockburn’s evidence, broods
its own eggs, taking for that purpose disused nests of
the common crow.

Jerdon tells us that, in the case of the common
hawk-cuckoo of India (Hierococcyx varius), he has
on several occasions seen the old birds of Malacocerus
malabaricus and M. griseus feeding a young cuckoo,
which was following them about screaming. On one
occasion, at least, there were two or three young
Malacocerei in company, so that the young of this
species of cuckoo does not always eject the eggs or
young of its foster-parents from the nest.

* Hume's Birds of India, ii, p. 383.

222 The World-Evidence.

Some of the Indian cuckoos that are not parasitic,
on the other hand, rear successive broods, a fresh
egg and full-grown young one being found in the
same nest.*

Ceylon has almost the whole complement of Indian
cuckoos—the common cuckoo being there either resi-
dent or migrating to India.

XXXIV.
HIMALAYAN, AMERICAN, AND OTHER EVIDENCE.

Tue remarkable resemblance of our common cuckoo
to certain hawks is proved to be in no way accidental
since resemblances even more close and striking to
hawks are found among foreign species. For ex-
ample, take Cuculus sparverioides of the Himalayas,
which in appearance, says Gould, much resembles
our canorus, though slightly larger, only that the tail
and wings are varied with several broad bars of
brown, and the breast blotched with patches of the
same tint, which gives it a great resemblance to
some of the Falconide, particularly to the Falco
sparverius, whence it derives its specific name:
whether it is parasitic or not, Gould did not know
at the date of publication of Birds of the Himalayas.

The naming of various owls and hawks bears testi-
mony to the resemblance. Thus the little owl of the
Himalayas, named Noctua cuculoides, exhibits exactly
the style of colouring of the immature cuckoo. The
cuckoo-falcon of West Africa, named Aviceda cucu-

* Ferdon, i, p. 318.

The American Cuckoos. 223

loides, is marked exactly after the cuckoo; hence its
name.

This is, no doubt, connected with the mobbing by
little birds, which has been observed in nearly all
countries. In this resemblance to the owls and
hawks, it finds not only escape from some enemies,
but also what, as Dr. Bowdler Sharpe says, must
materially aid it in some of its processes connected
with deposition of eggs—only that, in our opinion,
the purpose of such mimicry must be at once more
direct and of wider scope for use than he quite sets
forth.

Gould, in his Birds of Britain, says “‘ the Spanish
sparrows pursued the great spotted cuckoo in flocks
till even a cuckoo’s life ought to have been a burden
to him.”

Audubon says of the American cuckoo that “ its
nest is simple, flat, composed of a few dry sticks and
grass, formed much like that of the common dove,
and the eggs are four or five in number, of rather an
elongated, oval form and bright green colour. It
sometimes robs smaller birds of their eggs, and its own
egg, which cannot be mistaken from its singular colour,
is occasionally found in another bird’s nest.”

Now, we want much more careful and exhaustive
observation of American cuckoos even now—obser-
vation by different competent persons at different
points constant and thorough, and then checked and
compared, before we set down that these cuckoos are
practically innocent of parasitism or fall into it only
occasionally. They build a rough nest and lay four
or five eggs; but these eggs are found in other birds’
nests, in some places frequently.

224 The World-Evidence.

Now, my belief is that beyond a certain number of
eggs the American bird, too, is parasitic, recognising
the fact that it would be too much for it to have
more than four or five young ones to feed —and,
query, does it, like certain of its relatives, turn some
of these, on being fledged, over to the care of other
birds ?

The words I have put in italics above are very
significant—the robbing of other birds’ nests being
probably in some way connected with the mobbing,
and the egg of the American cuckoo, which is some-
times set before us as non-parasitic absolutely, in
other birds’ nests is richly suggestive in several ways
—which Mr. Darwin did not note.

Jerdon emphasises the same fact about the Ameri-
can cuckoo. He says:

‘© The American cuckoo, though it ordinarily incu-
bates its own eggs and feeds its progeny, does some-
times adopt the procedure of the Old World Cucu-
ling.’ *

Evidence accumulates year by year to prove that
the character of the American cuckoo, if once as
good as painted, is deteriorating from the high stan-
dard ornithologists of old were fond to give it; and
this testimony is from all parts—north and south,
east and west. They are no longer the ‘ unquali-
fiedly well-behaved parents ” of Dr. Bowdler Sharpe,
nor do they “ faithfully incubate” all “their delicate
sea-green eggs,’ as Professor A. Newton has it.

Mr. Macllwraith, in his Birds of Ontario, writes:

‘“The two kinds of cuckoo we have in Canada are
not so totally depraved as the British cuckoo. They

* Birds of India, i, p. 321.

Mr. Macllwraith’s Facts. 225

usually build a nest and bring up a family, but even
to them the duty does not seem to be a congenial
one, and they are sometimes known to slip an egg
into each other’s nests, or into that of a different
species. The nest they build is of the most tem-
porary character, and the eggs are deposited in such
a desultory manner that it is no uncommon thing to
find fresh eggs and young birds in it at the same
time.* .. . Last summer a pair had their nest and
reared their young within fifty feet of my residence.
They were very seldom seen near the nest except
when sitting on it. The nest was very flimsy, placed
near the end of a horizontal branch of a maple about
eight feet from the ground.”

Mr. Macllwraith notes that the eggs vary from
four to eight or nine. fT

This is a very large margin in the laying. My
theory of it is that the bird usually produces as many
eggs, but, beyond four, places them always, when it
can, in the nests of other birds. Sometimes, however,
it will happen that it cannot find such nests ready for
it, then it puts them into its own nest, but only then,
thus laying on themselves the burden of having young
throughout a very long season—young ones and fresh-
laid eggs being in the nest together.

Mr. Macliwraith has also this significant passage :

‘‘In the report of the Ornithological subsection of

*« The nest of the yellow-billed cuckoo is a very flimsy
structure of about twenty straws crossed, and so poorly put
together that after a high wind eggs of both this bird and the
mourning dove are frequently found on the ground in pieces:
that of the black-billed cuckoo is only one shade better,’’—
William Lloyd on ‘‘ Birds of Texas” in the Auk, 1887, p. 190.

+ p. 240 (edition, 1894).

226 The World-Evidence.

the Canadian Institute for 1890, Dr. C. K. Clarke, of
Kingston, Ontario, brings forward three cases of para-
sitism in the black-billed cuckoo, observed by himself,
of the correctness of which there can be no doubt.
The first birds Dr. Clarke observed being imposed
upon were a pair of chipping sparrows, who raised the
young cuckoo at the expense of the family.

“Next came a pair of yellow warblers, whose
protégé soon crowded out the legitimate occupants of
the nest. They were raised from the ground and
placed within reach, but the big boy required all the
attention of the foster-parents and the others died.
During the whole period the old cuckoo was always
to be found flitting about in a restless manner, as if
she had some doubt in regard to the ability of the
warblers to take care of her child.

“The third case was another pair of chipping
sparrows, in whose nest the cuckoo was observed
sitting, and from which she did not move till the
observers almost touched her. The result was the
same as in the other cases. The young cuckoo threw
the sparrows out as soon as he had the strength to do

so. *

* Page 241. Birds of Ontario. 1894. This took place in
1890, Dr. Bowdler Sharpe's handbook was not issued till 1896.
There he speaks of the black-billed cuckoo and yellow-billed
cuckoos rearing their own young, and as being both '' most affec-
tionate parents” (!) How close the analogies between men and
animals—even birds! In opposition to the views of earlier
anthropologists, it is now found—inevitably found—that, with
savage races, the practices of infanticide and exposure, only inten-
sify the afiection of the parents for those that are kept alive, so it
may be, that the American cuckoos are the more ‘affectionate
parents” to those they rear in the ratio of the numbers they
have exposed—in other birds’ nests.

Mr. F. L. Davidson's Report. 227

Now, if three cases like these have been observed
by one man, is it not possible that many might be
observed if people generally were as observant. The
more recent the books, or magazines, or journals we
have consulted, the more definite are they on this
head, with new instances many.

Mr. J. L. Davidson, of Lockport, N.G., writes
this to the Auk, 1887, pp. 263-4:

“‘T have the eggs of Coccyzus Americanus and C.
erythrophthalmus, taken from nests of the wood
thrush—two of the former and one of the latter. 1
also found a nest of Merula migratoria (American
robin) taken possession of by Coccyzus Americanus
before it was finished, which was filled nearly full of
rootlets; and in this condition the robin laid one
egg and the cuckoo laid two, and commenced incuba-
tion, when a mourning dove (Zenaidura macroura)
also occupied it, and laid two eggs, and commenced
incubation with the cuckoo. I found both birds on
the nest at the same time, when I secured nest and
eggs. Theeggs of the robin and cuckoo were slightly
incubated; those of the mourning dove were fresh.”
The above was published in The Forest and Stream,
August 24th, 1882, p. 65.

«‘T have also a nest of Sayornis phebe, in which a
robin’s egg is nearly embedded, and another of this
same species with.a cowbird’s egg quite covered over.
The latter is found in the nests of small birds, but I
have found them covered up, except in this instance,
only by the goldfinch and summer warbler.”

We have an instance or two of black-billed cuckoos
laying in disused crows’ nests, which shows the dis-
liké to nest building, and this dislike itself might

228 The World-Evidence.

well be viewed as a stepping stone on the way to
parasitism.

Mr. C. J. Maynard, in a book issued as late as 1882,
has the following :

“Two or three instances have come under my
notice, where either the black-billed cuckoo has de-
posted its eggs in the nest of the yellow-billed cuckoo,
or vice versa, and, furthermore, I have been informed
by such good authority that I see no reason for
doubting it, that sometimes the eggs of the black-
billed cuckoo are to be found in the nests of other
birds, and have been taken from the nests of chipping
sparrows. It is, of course, possible that this habit,
instead of being only an occasional outbreaking of
one that is nearly always latent, is progressive; or,
again, under favourable circumstances, it may be-
come more general; in fact, as fully established as
that of the cow-bunting, but this is a matter for
ornithologists of future generations to prove.” *

We may say, however, that the yellow-billed cuckoo
is the great offender in destroying eggs of other birds.

Here then we have an area of fresh facts in our
favour, and also an able American ornithologist, who
directly suggests the position we are fain to take—to
establish, that 1s, a marked and increasing tendency
to parasitism among the American cuckoos—all going
to support the plea of a much closer relation between
them and our canorus than has been yet at all realised,
and certainly in no way going to support Professor
Alfred Newton’s Encyclopedia Britannica deliverance

*Birds of Eastern North America, p. 217, ed. 1882. The chip-
ping sparrow, as Mr. Nehrling tells us, is everywhere a bird of
the orchard and garden.

Professor A. Newton’s Dilemma. 229

with regard to these two American cuckoos as
follows :

« There are two species very well known in parts of
the United States and some of the West India islands
(Coccyzus Americanus and C. erythrophthalmus), and
each of them has occasionally visited Europe. They
both build nests—remarkably small structures when
compared with those of other birds of the same size”
(he should have added that they were most flimsy as
well as small)— and faithfully incubate their delicate
sea-green eggs.” .... Respecting these cuckoos of
America, the evidence is certainly enough (italics here
and just above are mine) ‘to clear them from the
calumny which attaches to so many of their brethren
of the Old World.”

The evidence is certainly nothing of the sort; and
it Was in existence partly (see Mr. Nuttall’s recorded
observations) before Professor Newton ventured on
this very bold and unqualified statement in the Ency-
clopedia Britannica. But thismight have been passed
over had Professor Newton not been of a mind to
persist too far in his old opinion at quite a late date,
after the evidence had become too strong not to be
recognised as evidence even by him. His article in
Dictionary of Birds, in 1893, tells that he had heard
of it; but all he can afford to do there is to re-write
and very slightly alter the Encyclopedia Britannica
article, ad loc. to the following effect :

“« Respecting the cuckoos of America, the evidence,
though it has been impugned, is nearly enough”
(nearly enough now, mark) ‘‘to clear them from the
calumny which attaches to so many of their brethren
of the Old World—they faithfully incubate their deli-

230 The World-Evidence.

cate sea-green eggs which, mark you, the ‘‘ nearly
enough ” above by implication told that they did not
—not quite all like the auctioneer’s going— going8—
gone—not quite all !

The good character of these species is undoubtedly
going year by year, and various instances, most dis-
tinctly indicating this, were published prior even to
the date of Professor Newton’s Encyclopedia Brit-
annica article; and they had increased to a large
volume before he issued his Dictionary of Birds in
1893. So notorious is this now that, under the head-
ing ‘“* Canada’’—Canada very significantly not being
mentioned in the above passage, though it is like to
become more and mote important in this respect—in
section, Distribution of Birds in Encyclopedia Brit-
annica, Professor Newton, in next edition, will need
to add that these two species of American cuckoos, to
which he has referred, have there, as in a middle
connecting land between this country and the United
States, shown most markedly the process of passage
of cuckoos in America towards affinity with our own
common cuckoos in their parasitic habits, and not
‘‘ faithfully incubating (all) their delicate sea-green
eggs.” Since 1882, as the evidence of Mr.MacIl wraith
and others efficiently shows, instances have increased
in a remarkable ratio—all to the same effect.

Mr. Darwin's own statement about the ‘‘ occasional
habit’ of depositing eggs in other birds’ nests as
suggesting but a step in the progress towards can-
orus’s ‘wicked waze,”’ might have given pause to
Professor Newton’s pen on this point, or given im-
petus to it; and ought even now to make him pull up
(his attention having thus been emphatically directed

.

Mr. Nuttall’s View. 231

to it) and to recognise and acknowledge that he had
for once been too slow, and moved all too like that
wonderful young fodicipes fluviatilis, which he so
aptly celebrated in Zoologist, 1889, p. 577. Mr. Dar-
win and Professor Newton are here, at all events, at
loggerheads ; they diametrically oppose each other,
and, once again, to quote Artemus, ‘you pays your
money and you takes your choice.” The Professor’s
difference is not with me, but with Darwin: let the
two sides fight it out.

Had Professor Newton, when he revised the article,
cuckoo, for the Dictionary of Birds, come across
none of the late facts on which Mr. G. T. Gentry
—one of the latest and most reliable writers on
American ornithology—based, when he made this
record :

“Mr. Nuttall,” he writes, ‘‘ has recorded the find-
ing of the cuckoo’s egg in the nest of a cat-bird,
and another as late as the 13th of July in a robin’s
nest. These were considered at first as rare, if not
incredible, instances; but, latterly, we have had
several well-authenticated cases of such parasitism.
These observations, coupled with others equally im-
portant, which have been recorded, tend to show a
close relationship between our American cuckoos and
their not very distant European brother.” *

Professor Alfred Newton well observes the motto:
Festina lente. In 1877 the utterance was pardonable ;
but here we have, in 1893, close alongside each other,
the two statements that the evidence is only nearly
enough to clear the two American cuckoos, and that

* Italics are mine. Nests and Eggs of American Birds, p. 270,
ed. 1882.

232 The World-Evidence.

they still « faithfully incubate their delicate sea-green
eggs.’ That is scientific exactitude with a ven-
geance. Caution run mad nearly enough, and leading
nearly enough to logical contradiction. The evidence
of Mr. Macllwraith, or Mr. Nuttall, of Mr. G. T.
Gentry, of Mr. J. L. Davidson, and not a few others,
was before Professor Newton in 1893, and that is all
the modification he will make. Surely it is not too
much to say that Professor Alfred Newton is more
concerned for his amour propre than for evidence ;
and we are to bow down grovelling before his ‘“ au-
thority ’ in a case where facts—observed facts—must
alone decide it.

Mr. Gentry, in his Birds of Pennsylvania, ui, p. 115,
remarks concerning the American cuckoo:

“As the eggs are deposited at irregular intervals,
it happens that the same nest contains both eggs and
young birds, which seems to be a wise provision of
nature in strengthening that degree of warmth which
is denied by the shallowness and looseness of the
nest.”

Mr. Gentry has never known more than a single
brood in one season—a most important point in view
of the disposal by the majority of these cuckoos of
one half of their eggs.

These facts are certainly not without their own
significance in view of our proposition. These birds,
in the words of Mr. MaclIlwraith, exhibit no love
for the brooding and rearing process as do most other
birds; they are fain to limit the period of it—also the
number of young raised by themselves. They build
but a sorry make-shift of a nest, without sufficiency
of warmth. They, at least, have a strong tendency

THE AMERICAN YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO,

The Yellow-billed Cuckoo. 233

to parasitism ; and, what is more natural in such cir-
cumstances and with such a predisposition, that amid
favourable surroundings they should become more
and more parasitic. We should regard that as a
most natural and logical inference from the facts we
have before us; and if Professor Alfred Newton
maintains the opposite, we have simply to say that
we out and out disagree with him, and that his bold
ignoring of the facts will in the end not benefit him
any more than it would anyone else.

And it is unquestionable that, under civilization
and man’s improvements, the numbers of cuckoos in
America are extending as their range is increasing.

The yellow - billed cuckoo has a very extensive
range in summer; breeding from the Gulf coast
north to the Dominion of Canada, New Brunswick,
and Minnesota, and from the West Indies, where it
is known as the ‘‘ Maybird,” and through Eastern
Mexico to Costa Rica. Some even winter in Southern
Florida. . . . Of late years it has made its appear-
ance even in the City of Milwaukee, where apple
orchards occur. Though timid and shy, it becomes
very confident and conspicuous in gardens and in
hedgerows, where it feels safe and is convinced that
man is its friend and not its enemy. The number of
the eggs vary from three to six, but sets of three are
most common. It now and then at least practises
the vice which disgraces so many of its relatives, and
lays its eggs in the nests of other birds. The egg
has been found in the nests of the wood-thrush,
robin, catbird, cedarbird, cardinal, mourning dove,
etc., etc. *

* Henry Nehrling’s Our Native Birds (Milwaukee). 1896.

234 The World-Evidence.

There are no doubt some good points about the
American cuckoos, though most assuredly they do
not lie in the direction Professor Alfred Newton and
Dr. Bowdler Sharpe would point us, especially after
what Darwin himself had said in the eighth chapter
of his Origin of Species !

Let us do them all the justice that we can. They
are first of ail very devoted to each other in the
period of brooding.

Mr. O. Widmann thus makes record of an observa-
tion on 12th May, 1894, to this effect regarding the
yellow-billed cuckoo whilst brooding :

“The female, at this particular period of her life
and love, seems to care little for other food than that
which her courteous and attentive mate provides for
her. She keeps quietly sitting in all her loneliness,
as if lost in pleasant reverie, patiently awaiting his
return. Inthe exuberance of his affection, instead of
taking a seat at her side, as other birds would do, he
gracefully alights on her shoulders, slightly spreads
his wings as if in embrace, bends forward over her
head and puts into her open bill the tender willow-fly,
an ephemera of larger size.” *

And, secondly, they seem to have more possibilities
of being tamed and trained than our cuckoos, if we
may judge by a record published by Mr. Koumly, of
Seneca, Kansas, communicated to the American Or-
nithologists’ Union Fournal, 1893, p. 368, where he
told of these birds frequenting houses and buildings.
“ A female yellow-billed cuckoo herself frequently
visited the college chapel of St. Benedict’s, Atcheson,
Kansas. She was not flying about when I saw her,

*Auk, 1895, p. 114.

Mr. Beddard’s Paper. 235

but stood on the floor, on which she had laid an egg,
and to all appearance was standing guard over it.”

This, which is most evident from these facts now
recited, bears vast significance in favour of evolution,
in such a marked manner, indeed, that Professor
Alfred Newton, determinedly closing his eyes to it, is
a most peculiar spectacle in these, the closing years
of the 19th century. We have certain clear results
in our country—results that would seem to lie far
back, due to original instinct, were it not for unchal-
lengeable proofs of return on an earlier habit now
and then. Behold, in America, certain clear steps in
the process, coinciding with remarkable progress in
occupation and improvement in land, and the cutting
down of forest, and planting of fruit and thin-leaved
trees. And yet Professor Alfred Newton will not see
in these facts any significance at all. None are so
blind as those who will not see!

Mr. Beddard, in his careful and almost exhaustive
paper on the anatomical structure of the cuckoo (P.
Z. Soc., 1885, pp. 168—179), decides that no true
mark of classification can be found in the gall-
bladder; and he finds a broad line of separation
between the genera of the old world and the new in
the ventral tract—in the Cuculus, Chrysococcyx, Caco-
mantis, and Coccystes (?) of the old world it is a
single tract at its commencement, whereas in the
genera Saurothea, Diplopterus (?), Piaya, and Coccy-
zus of the new world it is double; but, certainly,
general tendency and habit are not much modified by
that.

The two common cuckoos of the Bahamas and the
West India Islands—the American cuckoo and the

236 The World-Evidence.

mangrove cuckoo (Coccyzus minor)—both brood their
own young;* but surely Professor Newton, in view
of the clear evidence that the American cuckoos are
found, under certain conditions, laying eggs in other
birds’ nests, goes too far in absolutely ignoring or
quietly setting aside all this evidence.

The peculiar fact, that in certain latitudes we have
varieties of the cuckoo, some of which, at all events
up to a certain point, brood their own young and
nurse and feed some of their progeny, and yet in
structure do not differ substantially from our cuckoos ;
and that, outside this, you have generally a full ten-
dency to parasitism, or more or less a clear tendency
to it, has not, in our idea, had the attention that it
deserves. Either climate or food must have some-
thing to do with this, or else points in the structure
and economy of these birds have not yet been ob-
served, studied, and fully illustrated. Can the fact
of comparatively recent settlement by white men,
carrying with them the work of civilization, have
anything to do with it? In latitudes throughout
which the work of civilization has for ages gone on,
there you will find the cuckoos, or certain of the
cuckoos, pronounced parasites, whereas in latitudes
more recently opened up to civilization and the intro-
duction of the changes that inevitably come in its
train, you have cuckoos that are clearly only more or
less on the way to full parasitism.

* Cory, pp. 116—117.

Cow-Birds. 237

XNAV.
INDIRECT EVIDENCE FROM THE AMERICAN COW-BIRDS.

We have already referred to one point in which
a striking commentary on certain actions of the
common cuckoo is found in the molothrus or cow-
bird—an American species allied to the starlings.
They are called cow-birds because they are often
seen on the backs of these animals or among the
cattle on the ground picking off insects that are

COW-BIRDS ON COWS’ BACKS AFTER INSECTS.

there. . . .* We may here indicate some other
points which will be suggestive and illustrative of
certain traits to be found probably more or less in
all parasitic birds.

I. The cow-bird’s eggs not only vary greatly in

* H. Nehrling, ii, p, 31-

238 The World-Evidence.

colour, but also in size. They show a pearly white,
often a pure white, or greyish white, or pale bluish
ground colour, and are often spotted, more or less
densely, with chocolate-brown, lavender and cinna-
mon-brown spots.* We have as yet, though we
have very diligently sought for it, met with no record
as regards the weight of these eggs as compared with
the eggs of other birds of the same size; but, from
analogy, we should expect it to be comparatively
heavy, as is the case with our cuckoo’s eggs. Dr.
Elliot Coues, one of the best authorities regarding
this bird, writes:

‘““No @ priori reason appears to me why the egg
should not have been of ordinary dimensions and a
different series of birds been called upon to incubate
it; while, as the facts stand, it is clear that the
bigness of the egg in comparison with those among
which it is usually. deposited, and not its smallness
relative to the cow-bird’s bulk is the favouring ele-
ment; for the larger egg must mechanically obstruct
the incubation of the smaller eggs, and so receive
the greater share of warmth from the bird’s body. . .
It is unusually small that it may be committed to the
charge of birds able to hatch it, yet too weak to eject
it.’ +

Mr. Hudson notes the great variety of eggs, but,
from observations, thinks that the eggs of the same
individual show a family likeness.

The cowbird’s eggs, like our cuckoo’s, are thus
very small compared with the size of the bird.

Major Bendire, in his most interesting monograph

* Nehrling, il, p. 245.
+ Birds of the North-West, p. 152.

Major Bendire on Cow-Birds’ Eges. 239

on the cow-birds in Smithsonian Report, 1893, gives
more detail than we find elsewhere on the extraor-
dinary diversity in eggs of Molothrus bonariensis.

‘“‘] doubt,” he says, ‘‘ whether any other species
exists laying eggs so varied. About half the eggs
one finds, or nearly half, are pure unspotted white,
like the eggs of birds that breed in dark holes. Others
are sparsely sprinkled with such exceedingly small
specks of pale pink or grey as to appear quite spotless
until closely examined. After the pure white, the
most common variety is an egg with a white ground,
densely or uniformly spotted or blotched with red.
Another not uncommon has a very pale, flesh-coloured
ground, uniformly marked with fine characters, that
look as though inscribed on the shell with a pen.
Rarer is a variety pure white with variously sized
chocolate spots: rarest of all is one entirely of fine
deep red, and between this and the white one with
almost imperceptible specks are varieties without
number, for there is no such thing as fixed character-
istic markings.”

And the cowbirds’ eggs vary as much in size and
shape as in colour, markings, etc., they range from
ovate to short, rounded and elongate-ovate, the first
predominating. The shell is strong, and no doubt,
as with the egg of the cuckoo, comparatively heavy.

This leads to no end of points of comparison with
the eggs of our common cuckoo. Are they thus
variegated for the same reason as is generally assumed
in regard to variety of colour and markings in eggs of
our cuckoo, or what? Does each slightly different
variety belong to one bird, which does not vary from
type or tint, or mark in any respect, or by one iota,

240 The World-Evidence.

or is there a range of difference, slight yet perceptible,
even in the eggs laid by one bird? Fain would we
learn something of these things, as well as satisfaction
on the question of weight, and whether in weight the
eggs of different tint or colour vary from each other,
and within what range, if any, among themselves.
For that we must wait yet, we fear, a long while:
and mention the point merely in the hope of bringing
these elements for comparative purposes a little time
sooner.

II. We have found record so frequently that the
eggs of our common cuckoo found in nests are more
advanced towards hatching than those amongst which
they are placed, as to be almost forced to the con-
clusion that they hatch in a shorter space of time
than do the eggs of the victimised birds. The eggs
of the cow-bird hatch in eleven days, as against four-
teen to sixteen days in the case of the birds into
whose nests they are intruded. Nehrling tells us that
when the cow-bird drops an egg into the nest of a
smaller bird it is first hatched; getting all, or nearly
all, the heat of the sitting bird’s body.

III. The molothrus manages, somehow, to dis-
pose of the other young birds in the nest; for soon
after exclusion from the shell they disappear.

Mr. Nehrling writes:

“In Texas I found two parasitic eggs in the nest
of the painted bunting, and of three in the nest of the
orchard oriol, only one was hatched, while the other
disappeared in a mysterious way with the foster-
parent’s own eggs. In the nest of a yellow-breasted
chat, in South-Western Missouri, three cow-bird’s
eggs were found, together with one of the rightful

Enhancing Chances. 241

owner. One disappeared before hatching, and so did
the owner's eggs, while two cow-bird’s eggs were
hatched. At the age of three days one of the young
parasites disappeared, and only one left the nest of its
foster-parents. . . It is not unusual to find one or
more eggs of the rightful owner thrown out of the
nest, and it is supposed that the female cow-bird is
responsible for it. This is doubtless done to enhance
the chances of her own offspring. In other cases
there are minute punctures in the shells of the re-
maining eggs, and this is probably done on purpose
by the cow-bird, to keep them from hatching.

Major Bendire thus supplements Nehrling :

‘‘There is no doubt that the cow-bird sometimes
throws the rightful owner’s eggs out of the nest pur-
posely to enhance the chances of its offspring coming
to maturity. I have yet to see a punctured cow-
bird’s egg. . . . One would naturally suppose that
birds breeding in holes in trees or under rocks would
be exempt from this infliction, but this it not the
case. Mr. G. W. Smith, formerly of Loveland,
Colo., writes me that he found a cow-bird’s egg ina
rock-wren’s nest which was placed under a ledge of
rock fully two feet from the entrance, and which was
barely large enough for the wren to squeeze through.
The dwarf cow-bird,” adds Major Bendire, ** which
usually selects nests of small birds for its eggs, is a
more persistent puncturer of foster-birds’ eggs than
even the others.”

Mr. W. A. White, of Mathews, Va., especially
watched a nest in which he had dropped a cow-bird’s

egg.
* Nehrling, ii, pp. 244-5-

242 The World-Evidence.

“The daily increase in the dimensions of the
young cow-bird was something immense, while his
younger companion seemed rather to diminish than
enlarge, and at the end of three days he died evi-
dently from want of food.

Mr. Nuttall has seen the parent birds removing
the dead young to a distance from the nest and there
dropping them.* The inference is, of course, that
the intruders of their own eggs have killed the true
young of the nest, and left them for the parents to
remove from the nest.

IV. In the case of Molothrus bonariensis the
males are much more numerous than the females.
““Azara says that nine birds out of ten are males.
The reason, perhaps, is that the male eggs of the
cow-bird are harder-shelled than the female eggs and
escape destruction oftener when the parent bird exer-
cises its disorderly and destructive habit of pecking
holes in all the eggs it finds in the nests to which it
intrudes. . . . In Buenos Ayres, where they are
most numerous, they have a migration, which is only
partial, however. It is noticeable chiefly in the
autumn, and varies greatly in different years. In
some seasons it is very marked, when for many days
in February and March the birds are seen travelling
northwards, flock succeeding flock all day long, pass-
ing on with a swift, low and undulating flight, their
wings producing a sort of low, musical sound.” +

Major Bendire tells us in his excellent treatise on
the cow-birds in Smithsonian Report for 1893, that of
the twelve species, three are found in the United

* Baird’s N. American Birds, ii, p. 155.
+ Birds of the Argentine, p. 73.

The Cow-Birds never mate. 243

States; Molothrus ater, molothrus ater obscurus, and
Callothrus robustus, and a fourth, Callothrus eneus, is
a resident of Western Mexico and portions of Central
America. The remaining species are confined to
Central America. ‘It is probable,”’ he writes, ‘ that
nearly all these species are parasitic to a greater or
less degree, laying their eggs in the nests of other
birds, and letting them perform the duties of incuba-
tion and rearing the young, with the exception of
Molothrus badius, the bay-winged cow-bird (of the
Argentine, Paraguay and Bolivia), which occasionally
builds a nest of its own or appropriates nests of other
species, but incubates its own eggs or cares for its
young like other respectable members of the Avian
family.” Our cow-birds are among the few, if they
are not the only, birds which practise polyandry,
which is probably caused for the reason that the males
generally outnumber the females by about 3 to 1.
(Major Bendire in view of our Canorus, etc., should
have deleted the clause, “if they are not the only
birds.’’)*

Dr. Elliott Coues tells us ‘‘ The cow-birds never
mate; their most intimate relations are no sooner
effected than forgotten ; not even the decent restric-
tions of a seraglio are observed: it is a perfect com-
munity of free-lovers, who do as the original cynics
did. The necessary courtship becomes in consequence
a curiously mixed affair. During the period corres-
ponding to the mating season of orderly birds, the
patriarchs of the sorry crew mount the trees and
fences, and posture and turn about and ruffle their
feathers to look bigger than nature made them... .

* Pp. 589-590.

244 The World-Evidence.

while the females perched near by, without seeming
enthusiastic, take it much as a matter of course,
listening at times it may be, but as likely preening
their plumage with other thoughts and an ulterior
purpose. The performance over, a very little while
afterward the whole band goes trooping after food to
the nearest cattle-yard or pasture.”

In how far, as suggested already, may the same
causes account for the great disproportion in numbers
of the sexes of cur common cuckoo? Has hardness
and weight of the shell here, as there, a great deal to
do with it? Were Mr. Bidwell’s highest weight eggs
those of males, and the lowest weight eggs those of
females?

V. Mr. Hudson, speaking of the Molothrus bonar-
iensis, Says:

“Tt continues in better condition than other spe-
cies, not having been engaged in the exhausting
process of rearing its own young, and, moreover,
being gregarious and practising promiscuous sexual
intercourse, must lay a much greater number of eggs
than other species.* Hens that never become broody
lay a great deal more than others. In wild distrvcts,
where the parasitic instinct was formed, and where
birds building accessible nests are proportionately fewer,
the instinct seems different from what it does in cul-
tivated districts. Parasitical eggs are not common in
the desert, and even the most exposed nests are prob-
ably never over-burdened with them. But in cul-
tivated places, where their food abounds, the birds
congregate in the orchards and plantations in great
numbers, and avail themselves of all the nests—ill-

iil comer

Mr. Bartlett quoted. 245

concealed as they must always be in the clear, open-
foliaged trees planted by man.”* A point this which
certainly deserves more special and exact working out
than it has yet got ; leading us, as it does, to a vast
problem ; to the part—the unconscious part—which
civilized man plays, wherever he settles or advances,
in gradually modifying the life and habits of all
creatures, and, so far as we know, more especially of
birds. He clears forests, and plants new kinds of
trees: he lays out parks, and makes ornamental what
before was wild: he decreases the volume of streams
and rivers, by turning them to account for irrigation
or for driving machinery, or other purposes, or to
supply the needs of towns, in succession to, or in
supplement to previous reduction, by timber cut down
over wide areas, and on slopes, on hill tops, thus lim-
iting substantially the rain-fall. The trees he plants
are less thick-leaved than those he has rooted out.
And as the face of the country changes—its whole
physical geography being gradually modified—so do
the various species of creatures change ; their habits
gradually modified, in obedience to the law of self-
preservation and increase of the species, if not to the
law of ‘* Natural Selection” and ‘ Survival of the
Fittest.”

Mr. Bartlett, in Wild Animals in Captivity, re-
marks:

‘The introduction and cultivation of a particular
kind of grain or fruit into a country will tend to
attract some of the wild animals from the surround-
ing forest to the cultivated ground, and to increase
their numbers by the food so readily obtained.”

* Pp. 77, 78.

246 The World-Evidence.

And he proceeded to give an illustration in the
case of the frugivorous bats (Pteropus poliocephalus )
of Australia, which, when grape-growing had been
started, came to form so keen a taste for the grapes
that, for a time, wine-growing in Australia seemed
impossible. But not only will wild animals be at-
tracted to the forest by the new grain or fruit—the
whole insect life of the district will be changed;
and, following on that change, the bird life and the
relation of whole families of birds to other families
of birds be conspicuously modified.

Mr. Hudson’s suggestion in that last passage we
have quoted would indeed carry us very far—carry
us so far that a volume might well be written on it.
If other birds profit in certain ways by these vast
changes, however gradually carried forward, certain
it is, too, that in some ways they lose—for a large
body of facts we have had before us connected with
the cuckoo and other parasitical birds lead to the
conviction that parasitism tends to have its fuller
play under the changes introduced by man, and
man’s advances, in what he calls, and, from his point
of view, rightly calls, ‘‘improving the country ’—
which means the improving off the face of the earth
necessarily of whole races of innocent creatures, or
of the transformation of those that remain into some-
thing wholly different from what they were—alike in
habit, function, and tendency—it is by such changes
and modifications indeed that they survive. Else-
where we have entered more fully into this subject.

In how far may these same operating causes,
working to the same or similar results as are sug-
gested here, be found in our common cuckoo (r) in

Cow-Birds Destructive. 247

respect of immense superiority of males in numbers;
and (2) as regards changed conditions on the country
in the way of cultivation influencing these to the
formation of certain habits, etc.? And what about
the reason here advanced for large numbers of eggs,
and how far does it apply to our cuckoo?

VI. The fact that an egg put into a nest of any
species alone before the true bird has laid any will
almost infallibly cause that nest to be deserted proves
that the victimised birds are then sharp enough to
recognise an egg not their own, the nest being so
invariably deserted. Abundant authority there is to
this effect.

Mr. Nuttall states that if a cow-blackbird’s egg
is deposited in a nest alone, the nest is uniformly
forsaken.”

This fact makes it the more likely that here, as in
the case of our common cuckoos, the intruding birds
try to remove the true egg or eggs, thus cunningly
aiding the duping by preservation of the numbers.

We read:

“Probably three-fourths of the lost nests of the
scissor-tail (Milvulus tyrannus), are abandoned in
consequence of the confusion caused in them by the
cow-birds. . . I have seen the female cow-bird strike
her beak into an egg and fly away with it; and
watched the male bird, when she quitted it, drop
down and begin pecking holes in the eggs.”

In how far are we justified in saying that Canorus
does the same ?

The cow-bird, like certain of our Canorus, watches

*P. 157.

248 The World-Evidence.

the nest in which an egg has been deposited—at any
rate, for some time.

“Tn all cases where I have found this egg, I have
observed both male and female cow-bird lingering
near.” *

Major Bendire says positively that:

‘When the young cow-bird is able to shift for him-
self, he leaves his foster-parents and joins his own
kind.”

VII. The common cat-bird, we are told, rejects
and ejects the Molothrus’s egg.+ And so do several
other birds; building it over in some cases, when
they cannot succeed in ejecting it.

VIII. Among all the varieties of Molothrus there
is only one which preserves any semblance of true
pairing. All the rest are like our cuckoos, and, as
Professor Baird decisively says:

“The screaming cow-bird (Molothrus rufoa.villaris),
is the only parasitical species in which there is con-
jugal fidelity;” a point on which Major Bendire
speaks to exactly the same effect. t

More and more, therefore, with these facts before
us, we are compelled to regard Mr. Darwin’s dictum,
that migration is the cause of parasitism in the cuckoo
as a most salient instance of the vice of generalising
from too narrow a basis of particulars.

IX. Major Bendire holds that Molothrus bon-
ariensis once possessed the nest-making instinct,
and he tells that twice he has seen birds of this
species attempting to build nests, but leaving them

* John Burroughs, Wake Robin.
+ Birds of N. America, ii, p. 155.
tP. 88.

Young Cuckoo's Habits. 249

unfinished—a recurrence too weak to be efficient to
the ancestral habit. How could such an instinct
have been lost? ‘To say that the cow-bird occa-
sionally dropped an egg in another bird’s nest, and
that the young hatched from these occasional eggs
possessed some (hypothetical) advantage over those
hatched in the usual way, and that the parasitic habit
so became hereditary, supplanting the original one,
is an assertion without anything to support it, and
seems to exclude the agency of external conditions.
. . Again, the want of correspondence in the habits
of the young parasite and its foster-parents would, in
reality, be a disadvantage to the former. The un-
fitness would be as great in the eggs, and other
circumstances: for all the advantages the parasite
actually possesses in the comparative hardness of the
eggshell, rapid evolution of the young, etc., already
mentioned, must have been acquired, little by little,
through the slowly accumulating process of natural
selection, but subsequently to the formation of the
original parasitical inclination and habit.”

This precise argument lies, and is quite as efficient
as regards our own cuckoo. The young cuckoo shows
instincts wonderfully correspondent and answering to
the instinct or intention or plan of its real parents,
but little to that of its foster-parents: the young
cuckoo will hiss and dart at anyone coming near to
the nest, while the true young would have acted
quite differently. This is one illustration; and, oddly
enough, it would seem that the conduct of the young
cuckoo is much the same whatever the nest he may
be in—the true young in which nests would behave
very differently. It would seem that the behaviour

250 The World-Evidence.

of the young Molothrus is very different, yet quite as
illustrative, from this point of definite unlikeness to
the habits of the legitimate young of the nest in
which it finds itself. Major Bendire has these very
pregnant remarks on this subject:

“ Consider the different behaviour of three species
that seldom or never warn their offspring of danger:
the young of Synallaris spixi, though in a deep
domed nest, will throw itself to the ground, attempt-
ing thus to make its escape; the young of Mimus
fatagonicus sits close and motionless, with closed
eyes, mimicking death; the young of our common
Zenaida, even before it is fledged, will swell itself up
and strike angrily at the intruder with beak and
wings, and, by making so brave a show of its ineffi-
cient weapons, it probably often saves itself from
destruction. But anything approaching the young
Molothrus is welcomed with fluttering wings and
clamorous cries, as if all creatures were expected to
minister to its necessities. . . . The young Molothrus
never understands the language of its foster-parents
as other young birds understand the language of
their real parents.”

Up to a certain point it is clear that the same is
true of the young cuckoo in many nests in which he
finds himself.

We see thus, from a comparison of the various
American cow-birds, a series, so to speak, of living
links in the process of development. First of all, we
have in Molothrus badius the lower level. As Nr.
Hudson says, they sometimes live promiscuously
together in flocks, and sometimes pair. They either
build a nest of their own or seize on one belonging

RICAN COWBIRD,

THE AME

Harm the Cow-Birds cause. 251

to some other bird, occasionally throwing out the
nestlings of the strangers. They either lay their
eggs in the nest thus appropriated, or, oddly enough,
build one for themselves on the top of it. Here the
nest-building habit is assertive anid almost invariable.
Then in Molothrus bonariensis we have parasitic
habits much more highly developed, with a very
much weakened tendency to nest-building — trials
made and a beginning accomplished; but nothing
further, and, finally, the indiscriminate dropping of
eggs into the nests of other birds, but in such num-
bers that slight chance is left of many or any being
hatched — since the whole habit of the victimized
birds would be overturned by numbers were incuba-
tion persisted in, whereas most of the nests are de-
serted ; while again, the M. pecoris of North America
has acquired instincts as perfect as those of the
cuckoo, for it never lays more than one egg in a
foster-nest, so that the young bird is securely reared.

The vast harm caused by these cow-birds can be
but guessed at. Here are the words of a close ob-
server and good authority :

“It can readily be seen what an amount of harm
the cow-bird causes in the economy of Nature, grant-
ing that only a single one of its eggs is hatched in a
season. To accomplish this, a brood of insectivorous
and useful birds is almost invariably sacrificed for
every cow-bird ; and certainly they are not diminish-
ing in numbers.” *

And Major Bendire tells that he follows practically
the same good habit as Mr. John Burroughs: when

* Bendire, Life History of Birds.

252 The World-Evidence.

he finds a young cow-bird in a nest, he kills or drowns
it; or, when he finds an egg, he destroys it.

One point on which we would fain have more defi-
nite and reliable information about the cow-birds—
results of exact observation and comparison—is, as
to the disparity of the sexes in numbers. There is a
great difference between three to one, and ten or nine
to one. This is, to our mind, an essential element in
the study of parasitic birds. We believe, as surely
as we now write, that the source and origin of para-
sitism is to be found here in polyandrous promiscuity ;
and the degree to which that has advanced, owing to
permanent disproportion of the sexes, is the measure
in which parasitism among birds has proceeded. The
two are related to each other, as cause and effect;
though, indeed, conditions of culture, and changes
effected by man, may be a second or collateral cause,
operating to aid the other.

PART V.

STRANGE FACTS ABOUT
CALLS AND YOUNG BIRDS OF
CUCULUS CANORUS.

Cuckoo Calls. 255

AXXVI.

ANOTHER point respecting Mr. Cuckoo Canorus and
his family which is wrapped in doubt. Do the young
birds when they are fledged learn the call-note of the
foster-parents or of their real parents, deserting abso-
lutely the former at this stage, after having got their
earlier up-bringing out of them? This query is sug-
gested by the fact that, on a certain early morning
walk, I heard no fewer than four distinctly different
cuckoo-calls : (1) the ordinary cuckoo-call; (2) this
call in a hurried, startled, sharpened tone, as if of
fear or warning; (3) a distinct and prolonged second
cuck, and cuck-cuck-koo-00; and (4) a low tentative
cuck-a-cuck-koo, the koo being faint and indefinite,
and more of the broader “‘a” sound. In addition to
the calls being different, the notes sounded varied. I
had never personally observed this before, and speak-
ing to a yeoman friend who has spent all his life in
the country, and has been out at all hours, and as a
sportsman has observed a good deal, he did not re-
ceive these statements of mine with surprise or as
suggesting anything novel, but gave it as his theory
that the young early broods of the cuckoo in June
are fledged and join older cuckoos, whether their true
parents or not he could not say: that the low hesitat-
ing cuck-a-cuck-koo, with the koo very indistinct, is
the note of the younger birds, and that the prolonged
second koo is the note of the old birds, as trainers,
now emphasizing that note to develop it fully in the
young. This is, at all events, ingenious ; it could be
verified only by evidence as to whether this prolonged

256 Calls and Young Cuckoo Birds.

second koo is definitely heard at periods so early as
to make it impossible that it could be due to the cir-
cumstances to which he attributes it. He quoted the
old saw, which lingers in some parts of the country
and is common in our district :

“April, cuckoo come,
May, he sounds his drum,
Fune, he changes tune,
July, he may fly,
August, he must.”

This rhyme has variations in different parts of the
country. Here is one:

“In March he leaves his search,
In April come he will,
In May he sings all day,
In June he changes his tune,
In July he’s ready to fly ;
Come August, he must.
In September you'll him remember,
But October he'll never get over.”

And surely Mr. Witchell is wrong when he says
that the ‘cuckoo’ is uttered by both sexes (p. 59,
Bird Songs and Calls). I have always regarded this
as specifically the male song or call, while ‘the
whittling or water-burbling note,” as Dr. Bowdler
Sharpe well calls it, is that of the female; and this
note, on being heard, draws all the males within
hearing to the point from which it issued. Mr.
Witchell himself, in the next paragraph, speaks of
this as the female note or call.

My friend averred that, so far as his broad observa-

Lord Lilford's Young Cuckoo. 257

tion went, these old saws generally had a basis in
fact.

With regard to this very important question of the
note, we must make a small citation from a great
authority :

Lord Lilford says of a young cuckoo taken from
the nest and kept in confinement, which survived for
nearly two years, that he would sit stolidly on the
perch (except at migration time, when he dashed
about and injured his plumage), continually chirping.

«We once only heard him attempt to say ‘ cuckoo,’
but the attempt was a grievous failure.’”’*

Now, Lord Lilford, we fancy, wrote the above as a
record of a fact observed, without any thought of
the inference—the important inference—that may be
drawn from it. Is contact with the old birds essen-
tial to the development of the proper cuckoo-note ?
From what we have said above about what is evi-
dently their careful efforts to induce it in the young
ones, it is so. In Lord Lilford’s young cuckoo, this
call or note, clearly enough, was not developed; and
a most interesting question, to be solved only by
comparison of observations of those who may here-
after find nestlings, and, like Lord Lilford, succeed
in keeping them in confinement, is, whether the
chirping is like to that of any other bird; and like or
not particularly to the bird out of whose nest the
unfledged bird has been taken, and of this a very
careful note should be made and preserved.

This little instance, at all events, seems to raise a
difficulty—(presenting, so far as cautious inference
may be drawn from it), in view of a somewhat over-

* Birds of Northampton, i, 254.

258 Calls and Young Cuckoo Birds.

decisive statement, to the effect that ‘ careful experi-
ments have proved beyond a doubt that each bird’s
song is really inherited, and that he will sing like his
parents, even though he may never have heard their
song ;" or, at all events, it furnishes presumably one
exception of a very striking kind, that demands very
close attention and special experiment.

Up to this point I was inclined to agree with the
following writer in summarising the results reached
by Mr. C. Dixon:

«There is no direct evidence to support the popular
belief that young birds, without tuition or experience,
warble off the song characteristic of their species ;
and every bird-fancier is aware how readily, under
suitable conditions, young birds will acquire a song
totally unlike what would be expected of it if the
inherited ability ruled. Mr. Dixon holds that the
songs of birds are acquired by imitation, and that if
young birds never heard the song of their species,
they would be totally unable to produce it.”

But just then I was brought into correspondence
with Mr. C. Campbell about the remarkable cuckoo
kept by Mr. Cochrane, of Edinburgh, through read-
ing the following paragraph in a London daily in
May, 1808 :

“At the last meeting of the Edinburgh Field
Naturalists and Microscopical Society a live cuckoo
was exhibited by Mr. Charles Campbell, who stated
that it was taken from a meadow-pipit’s nest in Wig-
townshire in 1896, and was hand-reared. It soon
became very tame, and was now a household pet.
It was probably the only one of its kind that had
survived two winters in this country. Although the

Mr. Charles Campbell's Letter. 259

cuckoo had not yet arrived in the Edinburgh district,
the one in question commenced its well-known call
on April gth. Mr. Campbell said he was not aware
of any previous instance where the cuckoo had been
known to call in captivity.”

I at once wrote to Mr. Campbell and was favoured
by him with the following letter and notes :

Dalmeny Park,
by Edinburgh,
23rd May, 1808.

Dear Sir,

I duly received your letter of 11th inst. regarding the
cuckoo, and am sorry I have not been able to reply to you
sooner. I have received quite a number of communications
regarding this bird, and when I exhibited it before our society
meeting, I was hardly prepared to see it so extensively noticed.

To save me writing, I enclose for your perusal some notes
about the cuckoo and other birds I had intended to send to a
local paper, but have not done so as yet.

I had not consulted Lord Lilford’s book to which you refer,
but there is no doubt that this bird gives the true cuckoo-call ;
there is no chirping about it.

I had a letter from the editor of the Sketch asking for a photo
of this bird. I had one taken, and it should appear in that
journal shortly, but, as the bird was in very poor p.umage, it
does not make a very pretty picture.

If there is anything further you would like to know about the
bird, I will be very happy to give you any information I can,
and you might kindly return my notes with any criticism re-
garding it, which I will value as coming from an experienced
writer.

Iam,
Yours very truly,
Cuas. CAMPBELL.
Alex. H. Japp, Esq., F.R.S.E.,
London.

260 Calls and Young Cuckoo Birds.
The following are Mr. Campbell’s notes :
A CAPTIVE CUCKOO.

‘‘One day last summer, while in Mr. Cochrane’s
bird shop in Market Street, Edinburgh, I was sur-
prised to see a cuckoo disporting itself in a cage
quite at home. As it has always been a debated
question whether a bird with so strong a migratory
instinct as a cuckoo would long survive captivity, I
was much interested in the specimen and naturally
desirous of knowing something more of its history.
There is, of course, always a feeling against keeping
any wild bird in confinement, but, given proper treat-
ment, there is much that may be said in favour of
making pets of our own wild birds that does not
apply in equal measure to birds imported from abroad.

‘In August, 1894, there was some correspondence
in the Scotsman as to the late occurrence of the
cuckoo in Scotland, and I then stated that I had
every reason to believe that a belated specimen of
the cuckoo was seen in the woods of Moredun, in
Argyllshire, as late as December, the weather being
that year exceptionally mild. Another correspondent
wrote saying he did not believe this, and quoted from
Mr. Speedy’s book, Craigmillar and its Environs, as
proving that our climate is incompatible with the
existence of the cuckoo in winter, and the bird Mr.
Speedy describes in that interesting book did not
survive beyond October; but Mr. Cochrane’s pet
had already survived two winters. In the cold
weather it is taken from the shop to Mr. Cochrane’s
house, where I went to see it a few nights ago.
When I entered the house, the cuckoo was perched

Continued to call till Fuly. 261

near the fireplace at liberty. It readily picked a
mealworm given to it, and exhibited no fear at the
presence of a stranger. After a look round at some
other pets, I enquired more minutely into the history
of the cuckoo. It was taken from a titlark’s nest in
Wigtonshire when very young, and hand - reared.
One of the great secrets of success in bird-rearing is,
of course, to know the proper food. A small piece
of raw meat it regards as a delicacy; in the season
it has a little chopped lettuce, or some grated carrot
mixed up with some kind of meal in which there
may be also a sultana raisin or two.

‘‘ Last year the cuckoo moulted in February, and it
is in the same condition at present. After it was
through the moult last year, much to the surprise of
its custodian, the cuckoo commenced its well-known
call, and continued crying till July. This is a very
rare occurrence, and I am not aware of any previous
instance of the cuckoo giving voice in captivity.

“About the end of July it began to exhibit a rest-
lessness it had not previously shown. That it felt
warning of its migratory instinct impelling it to fly
to a more congenial climate was very evident. After
a time it quieted down again, and began to moult its
feathers a second time. The cuckoo this year com-
menced to cry on the 7th of April, exactly a week
earlier than last year. The note last year was
clearer and firmer than it is this.” *

At the risk of seeming to repeat a little on a point
or two, I am tempted here to give a portion of a
letter written to me by Mr. Cochrane, in answer to

* Mr. Campbell’s article appeared in The Scotsman and
Edinburgh Evening Despatch of April 28th, 1898.

262 Calls and Young Cuckoo Birds.

one of enquiry from me, about the death of this re-
markable bird—the more especially as it utters so
simply and so well the feelings of a true bird-student
and bird-lover. The date of Mr. Cochrane’s letter is
December 12th, 1898.

“T regret to say that poor cuckoo is dead. He
died about two months ago. He seemed to become
gradually paralysed on one side, and was found dead

THE RECORD TAME CUCKOO.

(By permission of Mr. Balmaiy, Edinburgh.)

Brittle Feathers. 263

one morning. I may say that his eye was bright,
and his voracious appetite unimpaired up till the last.
I believe The Sketch had an article on him, and also
reproduced his photo, though I did not see it—the
Sketch paragraph, I mean; I have a copy of the
photo taken for the Sketch. I regret very much that
I did not have his photo taken when he was in good
condition and feather. At the time his photo was
taken (sitting on my hand) he was in wretched feather.
His plumage was perfect up to his first moult, and
until the migrating season came round, when he
became, for a week or two, very restless, and kept
continually jumping on to the wires of his cage,
thereby breaking all his flight and tail feathers. I
may here say that I never came across such brittle
feathers in any bird. There was no pliability in them
—they snapped like dry twigs.

‘* During this summer I had a bird which had been
shot brought to me to identify. It was a young
cuckoo, and its feathers were not nearly so brittle as
my own’s were; possibly the feeding of my one in
captivity had something to do with it.

‘“‘He was taken from the nest of a meadow-pipit,
in June, 1896, and commenced his well-known call in
May, 1897. Some days he would call incessantly
from daylight till dark. He ceased calling in July,
I think, and remained mute till the evening of April
gth, 1896. I remember the occasion well; it was
about g p.m., and he was sitting on the fender,
enjoying the heat of the fire. (He had the run of
the house at this time.) During 1897 his call was an
ideal one; just the same as if he had been at liberty
in the woods; while in 1898 his call was entirely

264 Calls and Young Cuckoo Birds.

different and disappointing, and not at all pleasant to
hear, neither did he call so often.

‘‘ His food consisted of meal worms, principally,
of which he ate seventy-three, one after the other, on
one occasion. He took them all from the hand, too.
He also had made up for him daily, minced hard-
boiled egg, minced lettuce, grated carrot, grated
boiled liver, and ants’ eggs, all mixed together. He
was also very fond of small pieces of raw meat. He
had also on one occasion a feed of very small live
frogs, which he seemed to appreciate very much. I
have heard people say that cuckoos ate other birds’
eggs. Well, I put small birds’ eggs into his cage
repeatedly, and he would never touch them. He was
a very intelligent bird, and made friends with every-
body. He would fight playfully with your finger;
putting out his wings and pecking vigorously, and
uttering all the while a sort of guttural sound from
the back of his throat. He would never take a bath.
Once or twice I gave him a shower-bath, but he just
sulked in a corner till he was dry again—never offer-
ing to dress or preen his wet feathers, as any other
bird would.

‘‘ Tt has never been in a position to hear the note of
its wild companions, but has been reared among the
shrieks of parrots, the piping of bullfinches, and
the trilling of German canaries. On one occasion,
when the parrots were screaming in chorus, the
cuckoo commenced calling vigorously, and, to the
astonishment of its owner, it soon had the field to
itself, for the parrots, by common consent, seemed to
stop and listen.”

This experience, though it is opposed by that of

Mr. Cochrane’s Case reverses Lord Lilford’s. 265

Lord Lilford, seems to confirm this sentence of
Father Gerard:

“One argument to the contrary nature has ex-
hibited in the cuckoo, which, reared in the society of
strangers and with their notes in its ear, yet sticks
unfalteringly to the tune, which only by instinct can
he recognise for his own.” *

For later eggs deposited, as many eggs are in the
nests of birds in Jater June, even in later July, it is
impossible that the parent notes could ever have
been heard by those young birds, for they would not
be hatched till after the old birds had become silent,
if they had not departed.

In Mr. Cochrane’s case, then, we have a complete
reversal of Lord Lilford’s experience all along the
line, as we may say, and must hold our decision in
reserve till we have more evidence.

And we may therefore meantime find some ground
for agreeing with Mr. Hudson:

“It is possible to believe that, while many singing
birds do learn their songs and acquire a greater pro-
ficiency in them from hearing the adults, in other
species the song comes instinctively and is, like other
instincts and habits, purely an ‘inherited memory.’ ”’t

We have record from another good authority of a
third cuckoo kept in confinement, which lived over
one year, and in this case, though there were decided
efforts to make the cry ‘‘cuckoo,” it never really got
beyond the first syllable ‘‘cuc,” and sometimes even
failed to render that with any degree of distinctness.

The matter can only be settled by careful expert-

* Science and Romance, p. 23.
} Naturalist in La Plata, p. 257.

266 Calls and Young Cuckoo Birds.

ment and observation. At present we have but case
against case, and we can only safely generalise from
a larger body of particulars. There seems to be no
doubt about Mr. Cochrane’s bird, and the case is all
the stronger inasmuch as he is so well assured that it
could never have heard the note of the free birds of
its own kind. We must wait for more light on the
subject and meanwhile reserve our opinions.

These two cases and one other show advance made
in treatment and success with confined cuckoos, since
Mr. Stevenson tells us, as though it were remarkable,
that Mr. Dew, a hairdresser in Norwich, kept one in
perfect health from June, 1863, till some time in
October, 1864—that is sixteen months—through one
winter.

Mr. W. H. Jack tells of a tame cuckoo which
haunted the bushes about his house, clearing them of
the larvae of Orgyia antigua, the common vapourer
moth. It took up its abode in the front garden, was
regularly fed, and grew quite fat. A pole was put up
for it, which it took to, and was often seen, when the
ground was wet, to dig up worms, like a thrush.
Zool., 1890, Pp. 457.

A most important further point with a bearing on
this matter is made clear in the following note from
Mr. C. A. Witchell, published in Knowledge, who
has made a very close study of the development of
bird-song, and written most effectively on the subject,
both in a well known volume and elsewhere.

‘“‘It seems to me that the missel thrushes near
Eltham sing longer strains than are heard from those
of Gloucestershire, and that the latter birds more
frequently utter a few high broken notes after the

Rev. Vere Audry’s Story. 267

strain, in the manner of a blackbird. It would be
interesting to learn whether anyone has heard the
missel thrush sing a long strain, such as one hears
from the blackbird. This point appears to me im-
portant in connection with the fact that the young
blackbird, when commencing his full-toned song,
utters short strains, like a missel thrush.”

Mr. Witchell’s closing words there raise the whole
question we have been asking about the young
cuckoos. Do the young birds instinctively sing the
song exactly after the type of that sung by the parent
bird, or do they catch up what they may most hear,
and begin with that ; or do they in their song, as in
other things, sometimes show back-strokes—fallings
back on the habits of relations long differentiated, and
ranked now in a distinct, though related family ; or
is it possible that intimacies of a peculiar kind are
possible and more general than is ordinarily believed
between members of those related families? These
are matters on which there is still much to be learned,
and which can only be learned by the observations of
close observers in different parts being systemati-
cally reported and compared. Here, for example, is
a letter written by the Rev. Vere Audry, and pub-
lished in The Spectator of April 25th, 1898:

JOINT-STOCK COMPANIES AMONG BIRDS.

“Is this conduct usual, and can any of your
readers throw light upon it? In this garden a thrush
is sitting on a nest of blackbird’s eggs, now just
hatched. The nest is a blackbird’s, the eggs were a
blackbird’s, but a thrush sits upon them; a cock

268 Calls and Young Cuckoo Birds.

blackbird sits in a branch just above and sings to the
sitting bird. What can this mean? One might
have supposed that somebody had changed the eggs
were it not for the cock blackbird sitting above.
There is no mistake about the facts; the nest is close
to the path, and we watch the performance every
day. There is no nest that we can find in the neigh-
bouring bushes.

“‘ Two years ago a child then staying in the house
reported exactly the same facts as having happened
in a bush on the other side of the path; but no atten-
tion was paid to what he said, as he was a mere
child.”

Now, if this is possible between the common thrush
and the blackbird, who, though relatives, are not
always very affectionate towards each other, might
this not happen now and then with the missel thrush
and the blackbird. I had an experience of my own
precisely in the direction of that of Mr. Audry, but.
should not desire to base upon it. Has Mr. Witchell
extended his observations widely enough to be certain
that the short strains like those of the missel thrush
are invariable with the young blackbird? That point
settled, generalization there would be easier. But so
much goes to modify these things—locality, as Mr.
Witchell tells. Eltham missel thrushes sing longer
strains than those of Gloucestershire, etc., etc.

Mr. Robert Read and other practical ornithologists
have frequently found two hen birds laying in one
nest. Mr. Read, for example, once found eight
thrush’s eggs in a nest in a wood near Durham,
which from their colour he judged to be the product
of two females, as there were two sets of four each.

Imitators of Nightingale. 269

He has found four spotless eggs and one normal one
in the same nest. The occurrence of the eight eggs
together, apparently laid by two hen birds, is inter-
esting, as it is known that occasionally the birds
build two nests in conjunction.* Everyone knows
that pheasants will often lay eggs in partridges’ nests
and in effect sometimes share the brooding with
them.

It is a notorious fact that building in the same tree
or near to each other disarms egg-suckers; thus
pigeons have been found building on the same trees
as magpies and jays, and in most of these cases it
was found that the pigeons’ eggs escaped the natural
marauder so near to them. So, with birds, not dis-
tantly related, building close to each other might well
lead in time to the sharing of one nest.

All, however, bears more or less-directly on the
central question of birds’ song, whether instinctive,
hereditary or imitative and learned by listening to
other birds’ notes: a whole lot of birds imitate the
songs of other birds, and by it very materially modify
their own—thus thrushes and yet more blackbirds and
starlings imitate the song of the nightingale, and
sometimes so perfectly up to a certain point that their
song might well be mistaken for the nightingale’s.
Light is much needed on this point, and it can only
be secured by ornithologists in one part taking up
special lines of enquiry and observation, and corres-
ponding with those in other parts; so that, from a
wide range of observations, general laws may be
reached.

One experiment I propose to myself on the first

* Dr. Bowdler Sharpe’s British Birds, p. 266.

270 Calls and Young Cuckoo Birds.

chance offering. This is to put a cuckoo’s egg, taken
from the nest of meadow-pipit or hedge - sparrow
under a canary hen or other caged bird along with
hers, modifying her food as far as may be in favour of
the cuckoo, then to watch how the cuckoo conducts
himself towards the young, as also how he developes
notes and song. I should be pleased if others would
try similar experiments, and put themselves into com-
munication with me that we may compare notes.

A correspondent of the Anti-Y¥acobin, who there
recorded some very nice natural history observations,
made these remarks about a variation in the cuckoo-
note heard by him :

‘« Twice only and that in the same part of Lanca-
shire have I heard the cuckoo pause on his first note
—cuck-oo cuck, and so abruptly terminate. Probably
some insect came within clutch of his beak and
stopped his song, with the hope, as Horace says, of
plus dapis. Apropos of cuckoos, a lively little boy,
bred among Mayfair chimney pots, was taken to a
country haunt for the first time of conscious observa-
tion, and hearing the fond bird calling its own name,
with which sound he was previously familiar only
through a cuckoo clock on the stairs of his home,
turned a face of childish surprise to his nurse and ex-
claimed among the hedgerows, ‘‘ But where’s the
clock ? ”

Mr. G. D. Leslie to Mario, under date 27th June,
1889, writes :

‘« The cuckoo, which has been singing for the last
eight weeks, has begun that absurd alteration in his
notes which is a peculiarity of the bird ; he no longer
says cuckoo, but cuck-cuckoo and cuckoo-cuck.

Cuckoo calls on wing when mating. 271

There has been a good deal of debate about whether
the cuckoo ever calls when on the wing. I am con-
fident that it does so when mating, and in pursuit of
the hen, as many other birds do that sing not on the
wing at any other time; canaries being among them.
I have seen and heard it thus many times: and then,
I can assure the reader, there is no mistake about its
note. And since writing the above I am glad to have
this confirmed by the observation of a good authority,
who, in the Zoologist for 1894, pp. 306-8, says:

‘‘ When mating the cuckoo most decidedly calls
when flying after the hen.”

Mr. A. Holte Macpherson, in writing of the note
of the cuckoo, however, tells, that while other birds
in their courtship actually lose their senses, and their
heads, the cuckoo always seems intelligent, and to
hear all neighbouring sounds.” *

Yarrell thinks that the notion of cuckoos sucking
eggs,—their own, or those of other birds,—arises
from their undoubtedly carrying their eggs in their
mouth; a fact which has been so fully observed and
verified that there can be no doubt whatever about it.
But from various facts and suggestions we have given
—it is clear that the piercing and sucking of eggs is
now common to certain species of cuckoos, and phe-
nomena observed in the case of others would almost
justify one in saying that it isin no way so absolutely
proved that even Cuculus canorus never condescends
to prick and to suck eggs; though, in our idea, it is
more than possible that modification of food in his
case, owing to changes in land culture, etc., etc., and
his reliance more and more on a sort of food, which,

* Zoologist, 1896, P. 337-

272 Calls and Young Cuckoo Birds.

inside him, does not accord with the egg substances,
has led to his generally abandoning the practice—
abandoning it, save in the exceptional circumstances
connected with deposition of his own eggs, etc. But
where he pricks eggs, it is more than possible that
he tastes them.

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*% Darwin and after Darwin.

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St. John, Sir Spencer. Life in the Forests of the Far East.
London. 1862.

Salvadori, Count. Prodromusornithologiz# Papuasia. Geneva.
1877.

Ornithologia della Papuasia. Torino. 1880.
Salvin, O. (and Sclater). Exotic Ornithology. London. 1869.
Samuels, E. A. Ornithology and Odlogy of New England.

Boston. 1867.

278 Books Read or Consulted.

Samuels, E. A Our Northern and Eastern Birds. New York
1883.
Saunders, Howard. Birds of Lancashire, etc. London. 1892
a is Birds of Spain, etc. 2
is a A Manual of British Birds. ky 1889.
Sclater, P.H. Articles in Zoologist and elsewhere.
Seebohm, Henry. British Birds. London. 1879.
3 oe Monograph of Turdidea. London. 1874.
ra o Coloured Figures of Eggs of British Birds.
Shefheld. 1896.
Sharpe, Dr.R. Bowdler. Catalogue of African Birds. London.
1871.
ms in Contributions to Ornithology of Africa.
London. 1870-3.
ay ‘ Handbook of British Birds (Allen’s).

i ‘i Catalogue of Birds in British Museum.
Shelley, Captain G. E. Birds of Egypt. London. 1872.
Fe A Catalogue of Picaricie (British Mu-
seum Catalogue). London. 1891.
Smith, Cecil. Birds of Guernsey. London. 1879.
- Birds of Somersetshire. London, 1869.
Smithsonian Institute, Reports of—especially with Articles on
Birds, by Mr. Lucas.
Speedy, Tom. Craigmillar. Selkirk. 1887.
7 Sport in the Highlands and Lowlands. Edin-
burgh.
Stevenson, Henry. Birds of Norfolk 1866—18go.
Swainson, W. Birds of Brazil, with drawings. London.
1834-5.
vn Birds of West Africa. London. 1843.
Swinhoe, R. Notes on Ornithology of Hong Kong. London.
1863.
oe Notes on Ornithology of Japan. London. 1863.
Catalogue of Birds of China. if i
5 Ornithology of Formosa. i

Books Read or Consulted. 279

Swinhoe, R. List of Birds Collected by Mr. Collingwood.
London. 1870.
Tristram, Canon H.B. Catalogue of Collection of Birds. Dur-

ham. 1889.

‘i i Land of Israel (third edition). London.
1876.

s m Natural History of the Bible. London.
1867.

Wallace, Dr. A. Russel. On the Amazon, etc. London. 1853.

. os The Malay Archipelago. ,, 1872.

5 = Australasia (third edition).

os “ uh (fifth edition). London.
1878.

Wallace, Robert L. British Cage Birds. London. 1886.
Waterton, Charles. Essays in Natural History (first series).

London. 1838.
(second series).

London. 1844.
* ” Wanderings in South America, etc.
London. 1828.
a es Ornithological letter to R. Swinton.
London. 1837.
Wilson, A. American Ornithology. Washington. 1848.
Wolley, John. Catalogue of Birds' Eggs. London. 1864.
Yarrell. British Birds. Edited by Professor Alfred Newton

and Howard Saunders, London.

INDEX.

Abbs, Miss, at Oatlands

Abdominalia, Arguments from

African Evidence, The, 213; Parasitic Birds there

Algeria, Glandarius in

Allen, Mr. Grant, 153,170; In Strand Magazine, 174;
'' Crocodile level!”

American Cuckoos, Dr. Bowdler Sharpe on

American Cuckoos’ Nests, 223; these birds, beyond a
certain number of eggs, are parasitic

America, Insect-eating Birds in

Andamans, The Koel in the

Animal Intelligence, quoted

Anti-Facobin, A Correspondent of, on Cuckoo-calls

Audry’s, Rev. Vere, case of thrush sitting on blackbird’s

eggs :
Audubon, 128; Audubon on American Cuckoos’ Nests
Auk, The ‘

Azara on Cow-birds

Baldamus, Dr. ‘ ‘

Barrington, Daines, and Gilbert White

Bartlett, Mr., on changes by man affecting animals

Bechstein "

Beddard, Mr., and Anatomy of Hoatzin, 35 (and note);
on Anatomy of Cuckoo

Bendire, Major, 109; on Simultaneity of Hatching, 110;

235

on Cow-birds, 239, 248, 251; on Cow-birds' Eggs 241, 242

282 Index.

PAGE
Bennet, Mr., on Lucidus 209
Blackwall, Mr. 25
Blackwall, Mr., and Cuckoo Brooding 41

Bidwell, E , 31, 50 (note), 51; his exhibition, 58, 69, 141, 142, 244
Blackburn, Mrs., 11; her drawing, 15; description, 14,

17, 18, 21, 22, 24, 92.
Blackcap Berry-eaters 6
Blue Egg, Coccystes jacubinus lays 53
Blue Egg in Hedge-sparrow's Nest at British Museum,

64, 65; Blue Egg question set at rest by Seebohm

and Elwes, 67; Blue Egg found in Nightingale’s

Nest 212
Blyth’s, Mr., Monograph, 86; his experiments 82
Blyth, Mr., account of Mr. Rhett’s nest 129, 130
Blyth, Mr., on the Koel 218, 220
Braune, Herr 12, 143
Brehm, Dr. A E. 25
Briggs, Mr., and Cuckoo ejecting Pipit, 22; on Removal

of Eggs 84
Brine’s, Mr., Letter on Blue Cuckoos’ Eggs 59, 68
Broinowski, G. J., quoted, 207; Australian Cuckoos

mostly resident, or emigrate no great distances 208
“ Broken Eggs"’ [shells ?] 109
Bronze Cuckoo of Australia 209
Brooding, Attraction to, void in Hen Cuckoo 156
Brooks, Dr., and Law of Heredity 179, 180
Bruce, Michael, on Cuckoo 354
Buffon, 106; gives reason why eggs should not be all

hatched at once 106

Buller, Sir W. L., on New Zealand Cuckoos, 201; Long-
tailed Cuckoo, 201; on Varied Eggs, 203; Mobbed
by Little Birds, 203; connecting link between ours
and American Cuckoos 204, 208

Index.

Burroughs, Mr. John, and Molothrus Eggs and Young

Butler, Colonel, on Removal of Eggs

Butler's, Colonel, Early Egg, 125; his Collection, 142
(and note); his query about woodpeckers seeing in
dark

Butler, Colonel, on Crested Pied Cuckoo

Campbell, Mr. C., about Mr. Cochrane's Tame Cuckoo 258, 260

Canaries will eat insects

5
“Cannock Brand” in Longman’s 37
Centropi, not parasitic 209
Ceylon Cuckoos 222
Chambers’s Fournal and '‘ Cuckoo Mimicry "’ 64
Changes man effects, affect birds, of which he does not
think 245
Chrisococcyx bridges a gulf 209
Clarke, Dr. C. K., quoted by MaclIlwraith 226
Coccystes jacobinus lays blue egg 53
Coccystes lay normally-sized eggs 72
Cochrane’s, Mr., Tame Cuckoo 258, 265, 266
Cockburn’s, Miss, facts about Indian Plain Cuckoo, 215;
on large Hawk-Cuckoo 221
Collett, Mr. R., and Bird Life 32
“ Colour-blind,’’ Some Birds 39
Corbin, Mr.G B. 94, 95 (note).
Cornhill Magazine on Cuckoos, 49; Cuckoo not ‘ poly-
gamous," but polyandrous 49
Coues, Dr. Elliot, 138; quoted on Cow-birds, 238; on
Cow-birds' Courtship 241
Courting with the Cuckoos . 88
Cow-birds, American, 178, 237; eggs vary much in colour
and form, 238; likenesses to our Cuckoo, 240; harm
done by Cow-birds 251

284 Index.

PAGE
Craig, Mr. John, 27, 28, 29, 30, 45; two young Cuckoos
in Meadow-pipit’s nest . 45, 46, 47, 126, 182, IQI.
Creighton, Dr. Charles, 16; his arguments against Jenner,
16; Cuckoo dissections, 17, 27, 42, 113 (note); a
point for Dr. Charles Creighton 127
Cross-bills eat small insects 6
Cuckoo-calls, Several different 255
“‘ Cuckoo-clock ? Where is the”’ 270
Cuckoo-hens Destroying Eggs 83
Cuckoo, Great Spotted, 199; do their young recognise
each other, and not turn each other out? 200
Cuckoo, Nests victimized by 10
Cuckoo, Modification of Oviduct in 177
Cuckoo, Young, restless in nest 13
Cuvier quoted é 115
Dabchick, Exceptional Powers in 37
Daily Telegraph quoted ['‘ At Headcorn’’} 185

Darwin, Charles, 37, 49, IOI, 104, 109, IIO, LII, 112, 113,
II4, 118, 119, 154, 185, 186, 192, 210, 220, 230, 234

Darwin, Dr. Erasmus 41, 62
Davidson, Mr. J. L.,on Parasitism of American Cuckoos 227, 232
Deer's Antlers, Mr. Tom Speedy and 168
Dew’'s, Mr., Tame Cuckoo 266
Dissections, Dr. C. Creighton and Cuckoo r7
Dixon, Mr. C., on Bird-song as imitative 258
Dresser, Mr., and Pralle’s collection 53
Dybowski, Dr., opposes the notion of young Cuckoo
throwing out other young 89-92
Eckermann and Cuckoo 4,9, 10, 116

Egyptian Evidence, 210; pressure of time can have no
bearing here 210
Ellis, Luke, and Blue Cuckoos’ Eggs 52, 141

Index. 285

PAGE
Elwes and Seebohm set at rest question about Cuckoos’

Blue Eggs 67, 143, 144
Emerson, Mr., and the Norfolk Broads, 86; photo of

Reed-warbler’s Nest in currant bush 132, 133
Encyclopedia Britannica 12, 38, 39, 229
Eudynamis not domestic 209
‘Everlasting Layers "' 118
Extraordinary Powers in Young Cuckoo 190
Fan-tailed Cuckoo of Australia 207
Feathered World, The 25, 30
Feeding young one prevents second brood 182
Female Cuckoos most modified 179
Field, The, and Professor Newton's note, 58; quoted, 96;

Editor makes a note 97
Fittest, all males 178
Forester, Mr. Freer's old 76
Freer, Rev. Selwyn C., 73-5: his old Forester 76
Frohlichen-wiederkunft, At 25
Garden-warblers, berry-eaters 6
Gentry, G. T., on American Cuckoos 231, 232
Gilmore, Mr. Parker, and mal-formed Antlers 168
Glandarius in Palestine lays in nest of Hooded Crow 211
Goethe on Cuckoo 4,9, 116, 1815
Gould, James S., quoted 106
Gould, John 23, 24, 25, 172, 206, 208, 222, 223
Grassfinch and Insects 5
Gray, Dr. J. B., and Cuckoos looking after young 84
Gray, Mr. J. E. 93
Great Spotted Cuckoo of Egypt, resident yet parasitic 210
Greenfinch and Insects 5
Grey Warbler, Long-tailed Cuckoo parasitic on 201
Grunack, Herr 13,143

Guernsey and Mr. Cecil Smith 32

286 Index.

PAGE
Gunn, E. T., in Zoologist 43
Gurney, J. H., 14, 43, 51; on Blue Cuckoos’ Eggs, 53;

quotes Mr. Norgate, 83; on Removal of Eggs, 84,
85; quotes Mr. H. L. Wilson, 86, 87, 124, 126, 133, 134, 136

Hadfield, Mr H., to Professor Newton 59, 60
Haeckel . 165
Hancock, John 17, 18, 26, 92, 94, 112, 126, 141, 182, 191
Hang-nests, Very Ingenious 173
Harper, Mr. R. P. 94
Hartert, Sir. 39, 40 (note)
Harting, Mr. J. E. 15, 24, 25
Hartmann, Von, on Instinct 103
Hawks, Resemblances of Cuckoo to 222
Headcorn, At 185
Headley’s, Mr., Quarterly Article on Birds. 163
“ Hereditary Faculty" in Egs-laying 56
Hereditary Instinct, Mr. Broinowski on 209
Heredity, Dr. Brooks and Law of 179
Herissant quoted 60
Heughlin, Von, on Egyptian Cuckoos 210
Hoatzin, The, and its Hooked Fingers 34, 35
Holioake, Mrs., and Cuckoo Brooding 41
Hooded Crow, Glandarius lays in nest of 211
Hook, Mr. Bryan, quoted 34 (note)
Hoyes, Mrs., of Skelmorlie, and young Cuckoo, 181,

Blue Robins feed it, 182; ‘‘ poor wee bird starved

itself for Cuckoo ” 183
Hudson, Mr. W. H., on Cow-birds’ Eggs, 238, 244, 245,

250; on Birds’ Songs and Calls . 265
Hutton, Captain, on Cuculus intermedius 220
Hymenoptera, Social, struck blind 189
Incubation, Peculiar form of Cuckoo which prevents 60

Indian Canorus, The, 218; Dr. Scully on it 218

Index, 287

PAGE
Indian Evidence, The, 214; Miss Cockburn’s Facts 215
‘‘ Inherited Instinct,” 71
‘‘ Insect-eating Birds" often try seeds, 5-7; in America 7
Instinct used to cover too much 171
Instinct or Misleading Instinct ? 181
Irby, Colonel 124,125
Jack’s, Mr. W. H., Tame Cuckoo 266
Jenner, Canorus in India not limited to time-table of 219
Jenner, 16, 21, 22, 25; his Dissection of Hen Cuckoos, 42;

two young Cuckoos fight 44, 57, 114, I15, 117
Jerdon does not believe any of the Indian Cuckoos

migrate from it, 219; Jenner’s notion tabooed, 220;

Large Hawk-cuckoo, 221; on American Cuckoo 224
Kearton, R. 17, 23, 153
Keas of New Zealand . 193
Kiessel, Herr, and his observations 62, 63
Koel, The Indian, 217; Colonel Tytler’s remarks on it in

the Andamans and Nicobars 217
Koumly, Mr., on Taming of Yellow-billed Cuckoos 234
Lankester, Professor E. Ray, use of his arguments in

Longevity 166
Large Hawk-cuckoo of India 221
Layard, Mr., and Golden Cuckoo 214
Layings of Eggs, Intervals between 187
Lee, Oswin A. J., and Cuckoos Ejecting Young 22, 23
Legge, Colonel W. Vincent, and Crested Pied Cuckoos’

Eggs ; 216
Leipoa ocellata 172, 173
Le Vaillant quoted by Layard 214
Leslie, Mr. G. D., on Cuckoo-calls 270
Lilford, Lord, 11; on Great Spotted Cuckoo, 87; his

collection 142, 199, 200

Lilford’s, Lord, young Cuckoo never called 257, 265

288 Index.

PAGE
Linnets, insect-eaters 6,7
Lloyd, Wm., on Yellow-billed Cuckoo 225 (note)
Logan, Rev. John, and “ The Cuckoo" 4

Longevity, Use of Professor Ray Lankester's arguments in 166
Long-tailed Cuckoo, 201 ; parasiticon Tui or Parson-bird — 201
Lucas’, Mr., Study of wing of Hoatzin 35, 36
Macllwraith, Mr., on Canadian Cuckoos, 224; eggs vary

from four to eight, 225; quotes Dr. C. K. Clarke, 226, 230, 232

Macpherson, Mr. A. Holte 271
Magpies leaving Pigeons’ Eggs alone 269
Males over Females, Excess of 72, 73
Males have more survived than Female Cuckoos 177
Masscy’s, Mr., Collection 142
“May be's’’ not good honey bees 193
Maynard, C. J., on Parasitism of American Cuckoos 228
Merrell, Dr., of Ohio, quoted by Darwin III
Migration, Insect-eating and 8
Millar, Mr. J. Peat 27, 28, 30
Miller’s, Mr. W. J. C., Robins desert nest with Cuckoo's

egg 135
Mivart, Professor St. George 171, 175, 195
Modification of Oviduct in Cuckoo 177
Molothrus Family, The, and Eggs 161
Montagu I7, 21, 22, 25
Mound-builders’ Chicks 116
Muirhead, Mr., and Birds of Berwickshire 73
Miller, Herr Adolph, 12, 61; deductions from facts

observed 62
Nawnannia 52
Nehrling, 228 (note) ; on Cow-birds’ Eggs in other's nests 240

New Zealand Cuckoos, connecting link between ours and
American 205
Newton and Little Grebe, 33, 34; quotes Rowley 85, 86

Index. 289

PAGE
Newton, Professor Alfred, 12, 58, 60, 63; on Mr. Brine’s
letter, inaccurate, 68 ; a reference to Canon Tristram,
212; the former on American Cuckoos, 224, 228, 229,
230, 231, 234, 235, 236
Norgate, Mr., 43; quoted by Mr. J. H. Gurney, 83; he
found Cuckoos’ feathers fixed in Reed-warblers’ nests 134

Norton's, Mr., Collection 142
Nicobars, The Koel in the 217
Nightjar does not hatch both eggs at once 107
Norfolk and Norwich Natural History Fournal 53
Nuttall, 229, 231; on Cow-birds 242, 247
Oatlands, Mr. J. Hancock at 18-20
‘Occasional Habits "’ 104
Origin of Species 37, 49, IOI, 157, 163, 175, 176, 220
Oviduct, Modification of, in Cuckoo 177
Owen, Sir R., quoted ; 37
Oxylophus glandarius, Canon Tristram overlooks eggs of 212
Page, Westley T., F.Z.S. 8
Palestinian Evidence 211
Partridges, The case of 32
Pigeons’ Eggs left alone by Magpie on same tree as its

nest . 269
Pennant quoted 24
Perrin, Mrs., and Reed-warbler’s nest , 132
Polyandrous Promiscuity opposed to Full Fertility, 155,

156; Source and Cause of Parasitism in Birds, etc. 252
Popham, Mr., and Cuckoos on Yenisei 32
Pralle’s collection of Cuckoos' Eggs 53,54, 142
Promiscuity, Polyandrous, cause of Parasitism 252
Quelch, Mr. J. B., on Hoatzin 35
Rabbits, Good way of exterminating or reducing 156
Ragnarok of the Cuckoos 178
Reason, Element of, in Cuckoo, and its effects . 120

290 Index,

PAGE

Read, Mr. Robert, and Egg-laying, 111; on two Hen
Birds using same nest 268
Reed-warbler Builds over Cuckoos' Eggs 63
Reed-warbler’s Nest “ 131, 132
Rey, Dr., 39, 140; on number of Cuckoos’ Eggs 124
Rhett’s, Mr., instance 128, 129

Rodney, Mr. H. S., finds Cow-birds' Eggs buried in nests 139
Roget, Dr., quoted 189
Romanes, Mr., on Mistaken Instinct, 48; on Bird Intelli-

gence, 51, 103, 117, 121, 122, 123; easy assumption,

139, 140, 141, 144, 147-9, 150, 151, 154, 158, 169, 180,

181, 185, 186; deposition of Cuckoo's Egg not rare

event 187, 192, 210
Rothschild’s, Lord, Collection 142
Rowley quoted by Professor Newton, 85; he observed

turning out of eggs, 85; believes laying begins early

in May : r27
Sacculina and Crab 187
Sachse, Mr., referred to 83
Samuels, Mr. E. A., finds eggs built over 139
Saturday Review on Cuckoos' Ejections 36
Saunders, Mr. Howard, 7, 17; two Cuckoos in one nest,

45; on Blue Cuckoos' Eggs 57
Science Gossip quoted g2

Scully, Dr., on Indian Canorus, 218; in the Valley of
Nepaul from April to October, 218; not limited to
time-table of Jenner there 219

Scythrops Nove-Hollande parasitic, 205 ; its monster egg
laid in nests of smaller birds ‘ 207

Seebohm’'s, Mr. Henry, British Birds, 22; reproductions
of Cuckoos' Eggs, 51, 52; Blue Cuckoos’ Eggs, 52-4,

57, 58; Elwes and Seebohm set at rest question
about Blue Cuckoos’ Eggs 67, 142, 143

Index. 291

PAGE
Seed-eating Birds often try Insects 5-7
Semper, Professor 164
Sharpe, Dr. R. Bowdler, 7, 53,55; Blue Cuckoos’ Eggs,
57, 58, 64, 66, 81, 82; Eggs of Blackcap, 107, 115;
on American Cuckoos 128, 151, 223, 224, 226 (note), 234
Shelley, Captain, on Egyptian Cuckoos, 210; on Cuckoos,
206 (note).
Shining Cuckoo of New Zealand : 202
Singing Birds sacrificed for one Cuckoo 181
Sitting Bird carries away broken shell 105
Smith, Mr. Cecil, and Guernsey 32
Smith, Rev. Chas. Alfred, 22, 25; Blue Cuckoo's Eggs in
Hedge-sparrow’s Nest é 7 58, 89, 92
Snakes, Transitory Tooth in young 37
Snapshots, Mr. Millar’s 29
South African Weaver-birds 171
Southesk's, Lord, Britain's Art Puradise 117 (note)
Speedy’s, Mr. Tom, Craigmillay, 182, 184; Mr. Tom
Speedy and Deer’s Antlers 168
Stanley, Bishop 17
Staphylinide found in anthills confer no benefit on ants,
188; Van Beneden's supposition 188, 189
Stevenson, Mr. H., on Reed-warblers, 133; Mr Dew's
Tame Cuckoo 266
Stickleback, The ® 167
Suicide, Unintentional, of a species 179
Swinhoe, Mr. R., and Cuculus orientalis 83
“Tables Turned, The”’ 44
Taylor, Rev R., quoted on Shining Cuckoo 203
Tennyson quoted 25
Thompson, Mr. R., on the Koel 218

Thoreau’s Night-hawk and Eggs 108

292 Index.

PAGE
Tristram, Canon, on Canorus in Palestine, 211; Glan-
darius there lays in nest of Hooded Crow, 211; even
may be overlooked, Eggs of Oxylophus glandarius 212
True Instinct, Return on IQT, 192
Tui or Parson-bird, Long-tailed Cuckoo eats Eggs of 201
Two Cuckoos in one Nest 45
Tyrant-birds in America 138
Vale of Guernsey 32
Van Beneden, Arguments from, 159, 164, 166; shrunken
males 167
Wallace, Dr. A. Russel 102, 119, 157, 158, 162, 182, 184
Waterton on Insect-eaters and Migration 8, 26, 27
Weaver-birds, South African bey Bi
Weir, Durham 25
White, Gilbert, 8; number of Cuckoos’ Eggs 154
White, Mr. W. A., on Cow-birds’ Eggs and Young Ones 241, 242
Widmann, Mr. O., on the Yellow-billed Cuckoo 234
Wilmot, Rev. Mr., and Cuckoo Brooding 41, 62
Wilson, Mr. H. L, quoted by Mr. J. H. Gurney, 86;
letter in The Field 87
Witchell, Mr. 256, 266
Woodward, Dr. H., and the Keas and Dinornis 194
“Woolly Bears" (tiger-moth larva), Cuckoos’ tit-bit 71
Wordsworth and Cuckoo 3
Wren Killed through Feeding Cuckoo 184
Yarrell and Cuckoos Sucking Eggs 271
Yellow-billed Cuckoo great Destroyer of Eggs, 228; Ex-
tensive Range, 233; on Taming 234
Young Birds Recognise Parents 193
Young Cuckoos, migration later than that of parents 71
Zoological Fournal quoted 4I
Zoologist for 1873, 58; Mr. Bidwell in 69, 70

Zygodactyle Foot, 12; Probable Intention 67

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