3. Those birds that are brought up by our care, and have had little communication with others of their own species, are very defective in this acquired knowledge; they are not only very awkward in the construction of their nests, but generally scatter their 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.