o their foreign namesake. The eggs are laid from
four days to a week apart, instead of daily, as with most birds, their
period of perilous nidification on that haphazard apology of a nest
being thus possibly prolonged to six weeks. Thus we find, in
consequence, the anomalous spectacle of the egg and full-grown chick,
and perhaps one or two fledglings of intermediate stages of growth,
scattered about at once, helter-skelter, in the same nest. Only two
years ago I discovered such a nest not a hundred feet from my house,
containing one chick about two days old, another almost full-fledged,
while a fresh-broken egg lay upon the ground beneath. Such a household
condition would seem rather demoralizing to the cares of incubation, and
doubtless the addled or ousted egg is a frequent episode in our cuckoo's
experience.

It is an interesting question which the contrast of the American and
European cuckoo thus presents. Is the American species a degenerate or a
progressive nest-builder? Has she advanced in process of evolution from
a parasitical progenitor building no nest, or is the bird gradually
retrograding to the evil ways of her notorious namesake?

The evidence of this generic physiological peculiarity in the intervals
of oviposition, taken in consideration with the fact of the rudimentary
nest, would seem to indicate the retention of a now useless
physiological function, and that the bird is thus a reformer who has
repudiated the example of her ancestors, and has henceforth determined
to look after her own babes.

With the original presumed object of this remarkable prolonged interval
in egg-laying now removed, the period will doubtless be reduced through
gradual evolution to accommodate itself to the newly adopted conditions.
The week's interval, taken in connection with the makeshift nest or
platform of sticks, is now a disastrous element in the life of the bird.
Such of the cuckoos, therefore, as build the more perfect nests, or lay
at shortest intervals, will have a distinct advantage over their less
provident fellows, and the law of heredity will thus insure the
continual survival of the fittest.

The cuckoo is not alone among British birds in its intrusion on other
nests. Many other species are occasionally addicted to the same
practice, though such acts are apparently accidental rather than
deliberate, so far as parasitical intent is concerned. The lapse is
especially noticeable among such birds as build in hol