eggs in various parts of the room
or cage, where they are confined, and seldom produce young ones, till, by
failing in their first attempt, they have learnt something from their own
observation.

4. During the time of incubation birds are said in general to turn their
eggs every day; some cover them, when they leave the nest, as ducks and
geese; in some the male is said to bring food to the female, that she may
have less occasion of absence, in others he is said to take her place, when
she goes in quest of food; and all of them are said to leave their eggs a
shorter time in cold weather than in warm. In Senegal the ostrich sits on
her eggs only during the night, leaving them in the day to the heat of the
sun; but at the Cape of Good Hope, where the heat is less, she sits on them
day and night.

If it should be asked, what induces a bird to sit weeks on its first eggs
unconscious that a brood of young ones will be the product? The answer must
be, that it is the same passion that induces the human mother to hold her
offspring whole nights and days in her fond arms, and press it to her
bosom, unconscious of its future growth to sense and manhood, till
observation or tradition have informed her.

5. And as many ladies are too refined to nurse their own children, and
deliver them to the care and provision of others; so is there one instance
of this vice in the feathered world. The cuckoo in some parts of England,
as I am well informed by a very distinct and ingenious gentleman, hatches
and educates her own young; whilst in other parts she builds no nest, but
uses that of some lesser bird, generally either of the wagtail, or hedge
sparrow, and depositing one egg in it, takes no further care of her
progeny.

As the Rev. Mr. Stafford was walking in Glosop Dale, in the Peak of
Derbyshire, he saw a cuckoo rise from its nest. The nest was on the stump
of a tree, that had been some time felled, among some chips that were in
part turned grey, so as much to resemble the colour of the bird, in this
nest were two young cuckoos: tying a string about the leg of one of them,
he pegged the other end of it to the ground, and very frequently for many
days beheld the old cuckoo feed these her young, as he stood very near
them.

The following extract of a Letter from the Rev. Mr. Wilmot, of Morley, near
Derby, strengthens the truth of the fact above mentioned, of the cuckoo
sometimes making a nest, and hatching her own young.

"In the