I am, etc.
Letter XXX
To The Honourable Daines Barrington
Selborne, April 3, 1776.
Dear Sir,
Monsieur Herissant, a French anatomist, seems persuaded that he
has discovered the reason why cuckoos do not hatch their own
eggs; the impediment, he supposes, arises from the internal
structure of their parts, which incapacitates them for incubation.
According to this gentleman, the crop or craw of a cuckoo does not
lie before the sternum at the bottom of the neck, as in the gallinae
columbae, etc., but immediately behind it, on and over the bowels,
so as to make a large protuberance in the belly.*
(* Histoire de l'Academie Royale, 1752.)
Induced by this assertion, we procured a cuckoo; and, cutting open
the breast-bone, and exposing the intestines to sight, found the crop
lying as mentioned above. This stomach was large and round, and
stuffed hard like a pin-cushion with food, which, upon nice
examination, we found to consist of various insects; such as small
scarabs, spiders, and dragon-flies; the last of which we have seen
cuckoos catching on the wing as they were just emerging out of the
aurelia state.
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