nds detect the act of "divine beneficence," in that "the young cuckoo
is thus insured sufficient food, and that its foster-brothers thus
perish before they have acquired much feeling."

The following account, written by an eye-witness, bears the stamp of
authenticity, and is furthermore re-enforced by a careful and most
graphic drawing made on the spot, which I here reproduce, and fully
substantiates the previous statement by Dr. Jenner. The scene of the
tragedy was the nest of a pipit, or titlark, on the ground beneath a
heather-bush. When first discovered it contained two pipit's eggs and
the egg of a cuckoo.

"At the next visit, after an interval of forty-eight hours," writes Mrs.
Blackburn, "we found the young cuckoo alone in the nest, and both the
young pipits lying down the bank, about ten inches from the margin of
the nest, but quite lively after being warmed in the hand. They were
replaced in the nest beside the cuckoo, which struggled about till it
got its back under one of them, when it climbed backward directly up the
open side of the nest and pitched the pipit from its back on to the
edge. It then stood quite upright on its legs, which were straddled wide
apart, with the claws firmly fixed half-way down the inside of the nest,
and, stretching its wings apart and backward, it elbowed the pipit
fairly over the margin so far that its struggles took it down the bank
instead of back into the nest. After this the cuckoo stood a minute or
two feeling back with its wings, as if to make sure that the pipit was
fairly overboard, and then subsided into the bottom of the nest.

"I replaced the ejected one and went home. On returning the next day,
both nestlings were found dead and cold out of the nest.... But what
struck me most was this: the cuckoo was perfectly naked, without a
vestige of a feather, or even a hint of future feathers; its eyes were
not yet opened, and its neck seemed too weak to support the weight of
the head. The pipit had well-developed quills on the wings and back, and
had bright eyes, partially open, yet they seemed quite helpless under
the manipulations of the cuckoo, which looked a much less developed
creature. The cuckoo's legs, however, seemed very muscular; and it
appeared to feel about with its wings, which were absolutely
featherless, as with hands, the spurious wing (unusually large in
proportion) looking like a spread-out thumb."

Considering how rarely we see the cow-bird in our walks,