. The British bird book . \^. **TpI ^HE Cuckoo, as most people know, is afeathered parasite, making no nest of itsown, but placing its eggs in the habitations of other birds,and leaving them there to be hatched by their foster-parents. These, strangely enough, never seem to detect theimposture which has been practised upon them, but situpon the strange egg together with their own. More remark-able still, they do not appear to object when the newly-hatched Cuckoo throws their offspring over the side of thenest, as it invariably does, in order to monopolize not onlythe whole of the available spa
. The British bird book . \^. **TpI ^HE Cuckoo, as most people know, is afeathered parasite, making no nest of itsown, but placing its eggs in the habitations of other birds,and leaving them there to be hatched by their foster-parents. These, strangely enough, never seem to detect theimposture which has been practised upon them, but situpon the strange egg together with their own. More remark-able still, they do not appear to object when the newly-hatched Cuckoo throws their offspring over the side of thenest, as it invariably does, in order to monopolize not onlythe whole of the available space, but the supply of foodwhich should have sufficed for the entire family. The reason for this absence of the home-making instinctin the parent Cuckoos appears to be that the male birdsare very much more plentiful than the hens, which are so 109
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjectbirds, bookyear1921
