When I came to recollect and inquire, I could not find that any
cuckoo had ever been seen in these parts, except in the nest of the
wagtail, the hedge-sparrow, the titlark, the white-throat, and the
red-breast, all soft-billed insectivorous birds. The excellent Mr.
Willughby mentions the nest of the palumbus (ring-dove), and of
the fringilla (chaffinch), birds that subsist on acorns and grains, and
such hard food: but then he does not mention them as of his own
knowledge; but says afterwards that he saw himself a wagtail
feeding a cuckoo. It appears hardly possible that a soft-billed bird
should subsist on the same food with the hard-billed: for the former
have thin membranaceous stomachs suited to their soft food; while
the latter, the granivorous tribe, have strong muscular gizzards,
which, like mills, grind, by the help of small gravels and pebbles,
what is swallowed. This proceeding of the cuckoo, of dropping its
eggs as it were by chance, is such a monstrous outrage on maternal
affection, one of the first great dictates of nature, and such a
violence on instinct, that, had it only been related of a bird in the
Brazils, or Peru, it would never have merited our belief.
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