Abstract
SCARCELY any bird has so much occupied the attention, not merely of naturalists, but of people generally, as the Common Cuckow of Europe, and (we might almost add, consequently) scarcely any bird has had so many idle tales connected with it. Setting aside several of its habits wherein it differs from the common run of birds, its strange, and, according to the experience of most persons, its singular mode of entrusting its offspring to foster-parents, is enough to account for much of the interest which has been so long felt in its history. Within the last twenty years a theory (which is, as I shall presently show, by no means a new one) with respect to an important fact in its economy, has attracted a good deal of attention, first in Germany, and latterly in England; and as this theory seems to be especially open to misconception, and in some quarters to have been entirely misunderstood, I shall endeavour to give an account of it in a manner more distinct than has yet (I think) been done; and to show that there is no good ground for believing it to be irrational, as some have supposed, and for scouting it as something beneath contempt.
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NEWTON, A. Cuckows' Eggs . Nature 1, 74–76 (1869). https://doi.org/10.1038/001074a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/001074a0