can never, but voluntarily, fall within the circle of its influence. To be happy with a little, is certainly preferable to the being miferable with much; and thofe, alternate hopes and fears which agitate the breast of a fortune-hunter before actual poffeffion, and that infipidity which frequently attends the very enjoyment of his wifes, are a juft and natural confequence of fuch irrational pur fuits; purfuits which are rendered plaufible by a fictitious fort of benevolence, which generally falls off in the firft domeftic animofity, leaving both parties to lament their want of earlier penetration. And certainly, after the faireft conclufion, those who have abandoned the flowers of celibacy, in order to cull the fimpler, though more fubflantial weeds of a connubial garden, cannot be entitled to any pity for the bitters they may ac cidentally meet with, when they willingly obicured the light of their own eyes, and thought no defirable object attainable but through the medium of money. Obfervations on the Natural History of the Cuchoo: By Mr. Edward Jenner, of Berkeley, Glouceflerfhire. (From a Puper read before the Royal Society, March 15, 1788.) HE firft appearance of cuckoos in part of England where thefe obfervations were made) is about the 17th of April. The fong of the male, which is well known foon proclaims its arrival. The ong of the female, if the peculiar notes of which it is com pofed may be fo called, is widely. diffe. rent, and has been fo little attended to, that I believe few are acquainted with it. I know not how to convey to you a proper idea of it by a comparison with the notes of any other bird; but the ary of the dabchick bears the neareft refemblance to it. Unlike the generality of birds, cuckoos do not pair. When a female appears on the wing, the is often attended by two or three males, who seem to be earnestly contenling for her favours. From the time of her appearance, til after the middle of fummer, the nets of the birds felected to receive heregg are to be found in great abundance; but, like the other migrating birds, he does not begin to lay til fome weeks after her arrival. I never could procure an egg till after the middle of May, though probably an early-coming cuckoo may produce one fooner. The cuckoo makes choice of the nefts of a great variety of Imall birds. I have known its egg intrufted to the care of the hedge fparrow, the water-wagtail, the titlark, the yellow-hammer, the green linnet, and the whin-chat. Among these it generally felects the three former; but fhews a much grea ter partiality to the hedge fparrow than to any of the reft: therefore, for the purpofe of avoiding confufion, this bird only, in the following account, will be confidered as the foller-parent of the cuckoo, except in instances which are parcularly specified. The hedge-fparrownonly takes up four or five days in laying her eggs. During this time, generally after she has laid one or two, the cuckoo contrives to depolit her egg among the reft, leaving the future care of it entirely to the hedge-iparrow. This intrusion often occafions fome difcomposure ; for the old hedge fparrow at intervals, while the is fitting, not unfrequently throws out fome of her own eggs, and fometimes injures them in fuch a way that they become addle; fo that it more frequently happens, that only two or three hedge (parrow's eggs are hatched with the cuckoo's than otherwife: but whether this be cafe or not, the fits the fame length of time as if no foreign egg had been introduced, the cuckoo's egg requiring no longer incubation than her own. However, I have seen an inftance where the hedge-fparrow has either thrown out or injured the egg of the cuckoo. time, and difengaged the young cuckoo and When the hedge-fparrow has fat her ufual fome of her own offspring from the fell, her own young ones, and any of her eggs that unhatched, are foon out, the young cuckoo remaining poffeffor of the neft, and fole object of her future care. The young birds are not previously killed, nor are the eggs demolished; but all are left to perish together, either entangled about the bush which contains the nest, or lying on the ground under it. The early fate of the young hedge-fparrows is a circumftanee that has been noticed by others, but attributed to wrong caufes. A variety of conjectures have been formed upon it. Some have fuppofed the parent cuckoo the author of their deftruction; while others, as erroneoudly, have prenounced them mothered by the difproportionate fize of their fellow-neftling. Now the cuckoo's egg being not much larger than the hedgefparrows (as I fhall more fully point out hereafter) it neceifarily follows, that at firft there can be no great difference in the fize of the birds juít burit from the fhell. Of the fallacy of the former affertion also I was fome years ago convinced, by having found that many cuckoo's eggs were hatched in the nefis of other birds after the old cuckoo had disappeared; and by feeing the fame fate then attend the nefiling iparrows as during the appearance of old cuckoos in this country. But, before I proceed to the facts relating to the death of the young Sparrows, it will be proper to lay before you fome examples of the incubation of the egg, and th the rearing of the young cuckoo; fince even the well known fact, that this bufinefs is intrufted to the care of other birds, has been lately controverted; and fince, as it is a fact fo much out of the ordinary courfe of nature, it may ftill probably be difbelieved. I. The titlark is frequently selected by the cuckoo to take charge of its young one; but as it is a bird lefs familiar than many that I have mentioned, its neft is not fo often difcovered. I have, nevertheless, had several cuckoo's eggs brought to me that were found in titlark's nefts; and had one opportunity of feeing the young cuckoo in the neft of this bird: I faw the old birds feed it repeatedly, and, to fatisfy myself that they were really titlarks, fhot them both, and found them to be fo. warm and lively. The hedge-fparrows were fuffered to remain undisturbed with their new charge for three hours (during which time they paid every attention to it) when the cuckoo was again put into the neft. The old fparrows had been fo much difturbed by thefe intrufions, that for fone time they fhewed an unwillingness to come to it : however, at length they came, and on examining the neft again in a few minutes, I found the young fparrow was tumbled out. It was a fecond time reftored, but again experienced the fame fate. only agents in this feeming unnatural bufi. nets; but I afterward clearly perceived the caufe of this great phænomenon, by difcovering the young cuckoo in the act of dif placing its fellow-neftlings, as the following relation will fully evince. From thefe experiments, and fuppofing, from the feeble appearance of the young cuckoo juft difengaged from the thell, that it was utterly incapable of displacing either the egg or the young sparrows, I was inducII. A cuckoo laid her egg in a water-waged to believe, that the old fparrows were the tail's neft in the thatch of an old cottage. The water-wagtail fat her ufual time, and then hatched all the eggs but one; which, with all the young ones, except the cuckoo, was turned out of the neft. The young birds, confifting of five, were found upon a rafter that projected from under the thatch, and with them was the egg, not in the leaft injured. On examining the egg, I found the young wagtail it contained quite perfect, and juft in fuch a ftate as birds are when ready to be difengaged from the fhell. The cuckoo was reared by the wagtails till it was nearly ready capable of flying, when it was killed by an accident. III. Á hedge-fparrow built her neft in a hawthorn hush in a timber yard: after the had laid two eggs, a cuckoo dropped in a third. The fparrow continued laying, as if nothing had happened, till fhe had laid five, her ufual number, and then fat. June 20, 1786. On inspecting the neft I found, that the bird had hatched this morning, and that every thing but the young cuckoo was thrown out. Under the neft I found one of the young hedge-fparrows dead, and one egg by the fide of the nest entangled with the coarfe woody materials that formed its outfide covering. On examining the egg, I found one end of the fhell a little cracked, and could fee that the fparrow it contained was yet alive. It was then reilored to the net, but in a few minutes was thrown out. The egg being again fufponded by the outside of the neft, was fav ed a fecond time from breaking. To fee what would happen if the cuckoo was removed, I took out the cuckoo, and placed the egg containing the hedge-farrow in the neft in its ftead. The old birds, during this time. Sew about the spot, fhewing figns of great anxiety; but when I withdrew, they quickly came to the neft again. On looking into it ip a quarter of an hour afterward, I found the young one completely hatched, June 18, 1787, I examined the neft of a hedge-iparrow, which then contained a cuckoo and three hedge-fparrow's eggs. On inspecting it the day following, I found the bird had hatched, but that the neft now contained only a young cuckoo and one young hedge fparrow. The neft was placed fo near the extremity of a hedge, that I could diftinctly fee what was going forward in it; and, to my aftonishment, faw the young cuckoo, though fo newly hatched, in the act of turning out the young hedge-sparrow. The mode of accomplishing this was very curious. The little animal, with the affiftance of its rump and wings, contrived to get the bird upon its back, and making a lodgement for the burden by elevating its elbows, clambered backward with it up the fide of the neft till it reached the top, where resisting for a moment, it threw off its load with a jerk, and quite difengaged from the neft. It remained in this fituation a short time, feeling about with the extremities of its wings, as if to be convinced whether the bufineis was properly executed, and then dropped into the neft again. With the extremities of its wings I have often feen it examine, as it were, an egg and neftling before it began its operations; and the nice fenfibility which these parts appeared to poffefs feemed fufficiently to compenfate the want of fight, which as yet it was deftitute of. I afterward put in an egg, and this, by a funilar procefs, was conveyed to the edge of the neft, and thrown out. Thefe experiments I have fince repeated feveral times in different nefts, and have always found the young cuckoo disposed to act in the the fame manner. In climbing up the neft, it fometimes drops its burden, and thus is foiled in its endeavours; but, after a little refpite, the work is refumed, and goes on almost inceffantly till it is effected. It is wonderful to fee the extraordinary exertions of the young cuckoo, when it is two or three days old, if a bird be put into the neft with it that is too weighty for it to lift out. In this ftate it seems ever reftlefs and uneafy. But this difpofition for turning out its companions begins to decline from the time it is two or three till it is about twelve days old, when, as far as I have hitherto feen, it ceafes. Indeed, the difpofition for throwing out the egg appears to ceafe a few days fooner; for I have frequently feen the young cuckoo, after it had been hatched nine or ten days, remove a neftling that had been placed in the neft with it, when it fuffered an egg, put there at the fame time, to remain unmolefted. The fingularity of its fhape is well adapted to thefe purposes; for, different from other newly-hatched birds, its back from the fcapula downward is very broad, with a confiderable depreffion in the middle. This depreffion feems formed by nature for the defign of giving a more fecure lodgment to the egg of the hedgefparrow, or its young one, when the young cuckoo is employed in removing either of them from the neft. When it is about twelve days old, this cavity is quite filled up, and then the back affumes the fhape of neftling birds in general. Having found that the old hedge-fparrow commonly throws out fome of her own eggs after her neft has received the cuckoo's, and not knowing how the might treat her young ones, if the cuckoo was deprived of the power of difpoffefling them of the neft, I made the following experiment. July 9. A young cuckoo, that had been hatched by a hedge-fparrow about four hours, was confined in the neft in fuch a manner that it could not poflibly turn out the young hedge-fparrows which were hatched at the fame time, though it was incelfantly making attempts to effect it. The confequence was, the old birds fed the whole alike, and appeared in every refpect to pay the fame attention to their own young as to the young cuckoo, until the 13th, when the neft was unfortunately plundered. The fmallness of the cuckoo's egg in proportion to the fize of the bird is a circumftance that hitherto, I believe, has escaped the notice of the ornithologift. So great is the difproportion, that it is in general fmaller than that of the houfe-fparrow; whereas the difference in the fize of the birds is near ly five to one. I have ufed the term in general, becaufe eggs produced at different imes by the fame bird vary very much in fize. I have found a cuckoo's egg fo light that it weighed only 43 grains, and one fo heavy that it weighed 55 grains. The colour of the cuckoo's eggs is extremely variable. Some, both in ground and pencilling, very much resemble the house-fparrow's; fome are indiftinctly covered with bran-coloured fpots; and others are marked with lines of black, refembling in fome measure, the eggs of the yellow-hammer. The circumftance of the young cuckoo's being deftined by nature to throw out the young hedge-fparrows, feems on account of the parent-cuckoo's dropping her egg in the nefts of birds fo fmall as thofe I have particularifed. If fhe was to do this in the neft of a bird which produced a large egg, and confequently a large neftling, the young cuckoo would probably find an infurmountable difficulty in folely poffeffing the neft, as its exertions would be unequal to the labour of turning out the young birds. Befides, though many of the larger birds might have fed the neftling cuckoo very properly, had it been committed to their charge, yet they could not have fuffered their own young to have been facrificed, for the accommodation of the cuckoo, in fuch great number as the fmaller ones, which are fo much more abundant; for though it would be a vain attempt to calculate the number of nestlings deftroyed by means of the cuckoo, yet the flighteft obfervation would be fufficient to convince us that they must be very large. Here it may be remarked, that though nature permits the young cuckoo to make this great wafte, yet the animals thus destroyed are not thrown away or rendered useless. At the feafan when this happens, great numbers of tender quadrupeds and reptiles are feeking provision; and if they find the cailow netilings which have fallen victims to the young cuckoo, they are furnished with food well adapted to their peculiar ftate. (To be concluded in our next.) Anecdotes of Tro Bishops. N Queen Elizabeth's reign, the church fuffered great injuries, principally caused by the ftrict attention of many avaricious bifhops to to the world. Fletcher, father of the famous dramatic poet, obtained, A. D. 1589, the bishopric of Briftol. He gave fuch exorbitant leafes of the lands of it, that he left little to his fucceffors, infomuch that, after his removal thence, it lay vacant ten years. He was a favourite of the queen. She once found fault with him for cutting his beard too fhort: whereas, good lady, the would have reproached him feverely for cutting his bishopric fo fhort, if the had known it. He was bishop of London in 1594, foor after after which, being a widower, he married a very handfome woman, the lady Baker, of Kent. Queen Elizabeth, poffeffed of high ideas of the virtue of celibacy, abhorred the marriages of the clergy. She was fo angry at this fecond marriage of the bifhop, that the forbad him to come into her prefence, and made Archbishop Whitgift fufpend him. He was afterward reftored to his bifhopric, and to fome degree of the queen's favour; nevertheless this difgrace was faid to have lo affected him, that it haftened his death. He died fuddenly in his chair 1596, being to all appearance well, fick, and dead in a quarter of an hour. Camden, in the annals of queen Elizabeth, imputes his death to the fuppofed poisonous qualities of tobacco, of which he was an iinmoderate taker. A. D. 1584, Godwyn, bishop of Bath and Wells, infirm, broken with the gout, unable to ftand, about feventy years old, married a third wife, a widow. One of the voracious courtiers, a knight, coveting the manor of Banwell, belonging to the bishop, informed the queen of his marriage, and begged a leafe of it for an hundred years. The bishop held out long against many harp meflages from the queen. Sir John Harrifon of Kelifon, near Bath, who wrote a character of this bifhop carried one from the earl of Leicester, who feemed to favour the bishop and diflike the knight; but they were foon agreed, fays Sir John, like Pilate and Herod, condemn Chrift. Never was harmless man so traduced to his fovereign. It was faid, that he married a girl of twenty years of age, with a great portion; that he had conveyed half the bishopric to her; that he was gouty, and could not ftand to his marriage; with fuch like fcoffs, to make him ridiculous and odious to the queen. The Earl of Bedford, being present when thefe tales were told to Queen Elizabeth, faid to her," Madam, I know not how much the woman is above twenty, but this I know, that her fon is near forty." This rather marred than mended the matter; for one replied, "Majus peccatum habit," he hath therefore the greater fin. Another faid, "There were three forts of marriages: 1ft. of God's making, as of Adam and Eve, when two young folks were coupled. The fecond of man's making, when one was old and the other young, as Jofeph's marriage. The third of the devil's making, when two old folks were married, not for comfort, but for covetoufnels; and fuch they said was this. The conclufion of the whole was, that the poor old decayed prelate, to pacify his perfecutors, was fain to fave Banwell, to part with Wilcomb, one of his best manors for ninety-nine years, und thus he purchafed peace. The fon of this Dr. Godwyn was bishop of Hereford. Notwithstanding the liberties which he hath taken with the characters off other bishops, in his excellent book "De Præfulibus Anglia," he was himfelf a great fimonift. He omitted no opportunity a difpofing of his preferments, in order to en rich his children. Bishop Gibson fays, hi felling the chancellorship of Landaff was made a law precedent. In fhort, it was reported, that nothing fell in his gift, but he fold in the favour of fome one of his for or daughters. Local Proverbs; from the Colle&ion latsiy publifhed by Francis Grote, Efq; To take Hector's Cloak TH in his fidelity. When Thomas Percy, Earl of Northumberland, anno 1569, wa defeated in the rebellion he had raised against queen Elizabeth, he hid himself in the houk of one Hector Armstrong, of Harlow, in this county,having confidence he would be true him, who, notwithstanding, for money, be trayed him to the Regent of Scotland. It wa obfervable, that Hector being before a rid man, fell poor of a fudden, and was befides i generally hated,that he durft never go abroad, infomuch that the proverb, to take Hector's cloak, is continued to this day among them, in the sense above mentioned. A cockney. A very ancient nick-name før a citizen of London. Ray fays, an interpretation of it is, a young perfon coaxed or coquered, made a wanton, or neftle-coack, delicately bred and brought up, fo as when arrived at a man's eftate to be unable to bear the leaft hardship. Another, a perfon ignorant of the terms of country œconomy, fuch as a young citizen, who, having been ridiculed for calling the neighing of a horfe laughing, and told that was called neighing, next morning, on hearing the cock crow, to fhew instruction was not thrown away upon him, exclaimed to hit former infructor, how that cock neighs ! whence the citizens of London have ever fince beee called cock-neighs, or cockneys. Whatever may be the origin of this term, we at leaft learn from the following verfes, attri buted to Hugh Bagot, Earl of Norfolk, that it was in ufe in the time of King Henry the Second. Was I in my castle at Bungay, I would not care for the king of cockney. i. e. the king of London. The king of the cocknies occurs among the regulators for the fports and fhews formerly heldin the Middle Temple on Childer mas-day, where he had his officers, a marshal conftable, butler, &c. -See Dugdale's Origines Juridiciales, p. 247. Portugueje 1788. Portuguese Voyages to the Eaft-Indies. Portuguese Voyages to the Eat-Indies. Various Voyages and Transactions of Pache69. Alburquerque, and other Portuguese Adventurers. (Continued from p. 574.) HE fight was bloody: in the heat of 625 lets, and other jewels; but all was punc Tit, Gabriel Texeira took the flan. George de Mencies, with fix hips upon the dard of Cambaya (after killing the bearer) coaft. The city likewife became better in- NOT E. Queen Catharine of Portugal, hearing the relation of his victory and triumph, faid "Don Juan had overcome like a Chriftian, and triumphed like a heathen." Kkkk After |