CUBE CURWEN, JOHN
CUBEBS CURZOLA
CUBICLE CURZON OF KEDLESTON, GEORGE NATHANIEL
CUBITT, THOMAS CUSANUS, NICOLAUS
CUBITT, SIR WILLIAM CUSH
CUCHULINN CUSHING, CALEB
CUCKOO CUSHING, WILLIAM BARKER
CUCKOO-SPIT CUSHION
CUCUMBER CUSHMAN, CHARLOTTE SAUNDERS
CUCURBITACEAE CUSP
CUDDALORE CUSTARD APPLE
CUDDAPAH CUSTER, GEORGE ARMSTRONG
CUDWORTH, RALPH CUSTINE, ADAM PHILIPPE
CUENCA (city of Ecuador) CUSTOM
CUENCA (province of Spain) CUSTOMARY FREEHOLD
CUENCA (city of Spain) CUSTOM-HOUSE
CUESTA CUSTOM DUTIES
CUEVAS DE VERA CUSTOS ROTULORUM
CUFF CUSTOZZA
CUIRASS CUSTRIN
CUIRASSIERS CUTCH
CUJAS, JACQUES CUTCH, GULF OF
CULDEES CUTCH, RUNN OF
CULEBRA CUTHBERT, SAINT
CULLEN, PAUL CUTLASS
CULLEN, WILLIAM CUTLER, MANASSEH
CULLEN CUTLERY
CULLERA CUTTACK
CULLINAN CUTTLE-FISH
CULLODEN CUTTS OF GOWRAN, JOHN CUTTS
CULM CUVIER, GEORGES LEOPOLD DAGOBERT
CULMINATION CUVILLES, FRANCOIS DE
CULPRIT CUXHAVEN
CULROSS CUYABA
CULTIVATOR CUYAPO
CUMAE CUYP
CUMANA CUZA, ALEXANDER JOHN
CUMBERLAND, DUKES AND EARLS OF CUZCO
CUMBERLAND, RICHARD (English philosopher) CYANAMIDE
CUMBERLAND, RICHARD (English dramatist) CYANIC ACID AND CYANATES
CUMBERLAND, WILLIAM AUGUSTUS CYANIDE
CUMBERLAND (county of England) CYANITE
CUMBERLAND (Maryland, U.S.A.) CYANOGEN
CUMBERLAND (Rhode Island, U.S.A.) CYAXARES
CUMBERLAND MOUNTAINS CYBELE
CUMBERLAND RIVER CYCLADES
CUMBRAES, THE CYCLAMEN
CUMIN CYCLE
CUMMERBUND CYCLING
CUMMING, JOSEPH GEORGE CYCLOID
CUMNOCK AND HOLMHEAD CYCLOMETER
CUNARD, SIR SAMUEL CYCLONE
CUNAS CYCLOPEAN MASONRY
CUNDINAMARCA CYCLOPES
CUNEIFORM CYCLOSTOMATA
CUNEO CYCLOSTYLE
CUNEUS CYGNUS
CUNITZ, MARIA CYLINDER
CUNNINGHAM, ALEXANDER CYLLENE
CUNNINGHAM, ALLAN CYMA
CUNNINGHAM, WILLIAM (Scottish theologian) CYMBALS
CUNNINGHAM, WILLIAM (English economist) CYNEGILS
CUP CYNEWULF (king of Wessex)
CUPAR CYNEWULF (Old-English poet)
CUPBOARD CYNICS
CUPID CYNOSURE
CUPOLA CYPERACEAE
CUPPING CY-PRES
CUPRA CYPRESS
CUPRITE CYPRIAN, SAINT
CUPULIFERAE CYPRINODONTS
CURACAO CYPRUS
CURACOA CYPRUS, CHURCH OF
CURASSOW CYPSELUS
CURATE CYRANO DE BERGERAC, SAVINIEN
CURATOR CYRENAICA
CURCI, CARLO MARIA CYRENAICS
CUREL, FRANCOIS CYRENE
CURELY, JEAN NICOLAS CYRIL (bishop of Jerusalem)
CURES CYRIL (bishop of Alexandria)
CURETES CYRIL (apostle of the Slavs)
CURETON, WILLIAM CYRILLIC
CURETUS CYRILLUS
CURFEW CYRTO-STYLE
CURIA CYRUS
CURIA REGIS CYSTOFLAGELLATA
CURIA ROMANA CYSTOLITH
CURICO CYTHERA
CURIE, PIERRE CYTISINE
CURIO, GAIUS SCRIBONIUS CYTOLOGY
CURITYBA CYZICENUS
CURLEW CYZICUS
CURLING, THOMAS BLIZARD CZARNIECKI, STEPHEN
CURLING CZARTORYSKI, ADAM GEORGE
CURLL, EDMUND CZARTORYSKI, FRYDERYK MICHAL
CURRAGH CZECH
CURRAN, JOHN PHILPOT CZENSTOCHOWA
CURRANT CZERNOWITZ
CURRICLE CZERNY, KARL
CURRIE, SIR DONALD D
CURRIE, JAMES DACCA
CURRY DACE
CURSOR, LUCIUS PAPIRIUS DACH, SIMON
CURSOR MUNDI DACIA
CURTAIN DACIER, ANDRE
CURTANA DACITE
CURTEA DE ARGESH DACOIT
CURTESY DA COSTA, ISAAK
CURTILAGE DACTYL
CURTIN ANDREW GREGG DAEDALUS
CURTIS, GEORGE TICKNOR DAFFODIL
CURTIS, GEORGE WILLIAM DAFYDD AB GWILYM
CURTIUS, ERNST DAGGER
CURTIUS, MARCUS DAGHESTAN
CURTIUS RUFUS, QUINTUS DAGO
CURULE DAGOBERT I.
CURVE DAGON
CURVILINEAR DAGUERRE, LOUIS JACQUES MANDE
CURWEN, HUGH
CUBE (Gr. [Greek: kubos], a cube), in geometry, a solid bounded by six
equal squares, so placed that the angle between any pair of adjacent
faces is a right angle. This solid played an all-important part in the
geometry and cosmology of the Greeks. Plato (_Timaeus_) described the
figure in the following terms:--"The isosceles triangle which has its
vertical angle a right angle ... combined in sets of four, with the
right angles meeting at the centre, form a single square. Six of these
squares joined together formed eight solid angles, each produced by
three plane right angles: and the shape of the body thus formed was
cubical, having six square planes for its surfaces." In his cosmology
Plato assigned this solid to "earth," for "'earth' is the least mobile
of the four (elements--'fire,' 'water,' 'air' and 'earth') and most
plastic of bodies: and that substance must possess this nature in the
highest degree which has its bases most stable." The mensuration of the
cube, and its relations to other geometrical solids are treated in the
article POLYHEDRON; in the same article are treated the Archimedean
solids, the truncated and snub-cube; reference should be made to the
article CRYSTALLOGRAPHY for its significance as a crystal form.
A famous problem concerning the cube, namely, to construct a cube of
twice the volume of a given cube, was attacked with great vigour by the
Pythagoreans, Sophists and Platonists. It became known as the "Delian
problem" or the "problem of the duplication of the cube," and ranks in
historical importance with the problems of "trisecting an angle" and
"squaring the circle." The origin of the problem is open to conjecture.
The Pythagorean discovery of "squaring a square," i.e. constructing a
square of twice the area of a given square (which follows as a corollary
to the Pythagorean property of a right-angled triangle, viz. the square
of the hypotenuse equals the sum of the squares on the sides), may have
suggested the strictly analogous problem of doubling a cube.
Eratosthenes (c. 200 B.C.), however, gives a picturesque origin to the
problem. In a letter to Ptolemy Euergetes he narrates the history of the
problem. The Delians, suffering a dire pestilence, consulted their
oracles, and were ordered to double the volume of the altar to their
tutelary god, Apollo. An altar was built having an edge double the
length of the original; but the plague was unabated, the oracles not
having been obeyed. The error was discovered, and the Delians applied to
Plato for his advice, and Plato referred them to Eudoxus. This story is
mere fable, for the problem is far older than Plato.
Hippocrates of Chios (c. 430 B.C.), the discoverer of the square of a
lune, showed that the problem reduced to the determination of two mean
proportionals between two given lines, one of them being twice the
length of the other. Algebraically expressed, if x and y be the required
mean proportionals and a, 2a, the lines, we have a : x :: x : y :: y :
2a, from which it follows that x^3 = 2a^3. Although Hippocrates could not
determine the proportionals, his statement of the problem in this form
was a great advance, for it was perceived that the problem of trisecting
an angle was reducible to a similar form which, in the language of
algebraic geometry, is to solve geometrically a cubic equation.
According to Proclus, a man named Hippias, probably Hippias of Elis (c.
460 B.C.), trisected an angle with a mechanical curve, named the
quadratrix (q.v.). Archytas of Tarentum (c. 430 B.C.) solved the
problems by means of sections of a half cylinder; according to Eutocius,
Menaechmus solved them by means of the intersections of conic sections;
and Eudoxus also gave a solution.
All these solutions were condemned by Plato on the ground that they were
mechanical and not geometrical, i.e. they were not effected by means of
circles and lines. However, no proper geometrical solution, in Plato's
sense, was obtained; in fact it is now generally agreed that, with such
a restriction, the problem is insoluble. The pursuit of mechanical
methods furnished a stimulus to the study of mechanical loci, for
example, the locus of a point carried on a rod which is caused to move
according to a definite rule. Thus Nicomedes invented the conchoid
(q.v.); Diocles the cissoid (q.v.); Dinostratus studied the quadratrix
invented by Hippias; all these curves furnished solutions, as is also
the case with the trisectrix, a special form of Pascal's limacon (q.v.).
These problems were also attacked by the Arabian mathematicians; Tobit
ben Korra (836-901) is credited with a solution, while Abul Gud solved
it by means of a parabola and an equilateral hyperbola.
In algebra, the "cube" of a quantity is the quantity multiplied by
itself twice, i.e. if a be the quantity a X a X a (= a^3) is its cube.
Similarly the "cube root" of a quantity is another quantity which when
multiplied by itself twice gives the original quantity; thus a^(1/3) is
the cube root of a (see ARITHMETIC and ALGEBRA). A "cubic equation" is
one in which the highest power of the unknown is the cube (see
EQUATION); similarly, a "cubic curve" has an equation containing no term
of a power higher than the third, the powers of a compound term being
added together.
In mensuration, "cubature" is sometimes used to denote the volume of a
solid; the word is parallel with "quadrature," to determine the area of
a surface (see MENSURATION; INFINITESIMAL CALCULUS).
CUBEBS (Arab. _kababah_), the fruit of several species of pepper
(_Piper_), belonging to the natural order Piperaceae. The cubebs of
pharmacy are produced by _Piper Cubeba_, a climbing woody shrub
indigenous to south Borneo, Sumatra, Prince of Wales Island and Java. It
has round, ash-coloured, smooth branches; lanceolate, or ovate-oblong,
somewhat leathery, shining leaves, 4 to 6(1/2) in. long and 1(1/2) to 2
in. broad. Male and female flowers are borne on distinct plants. The
fruits are small, globose, about 1/5 in. in diameter, and not so large
as white pepper; their contracted stalk-like bases are between 1/3 and
1/2 in. in length; and from forty to fifty of them are borne upon a
common stem. The cubeb is cultivated in Java and Sumatra, the fruits are
gathered before they are ripe, and carefully dried. Commercial cubebs
consist of the dried berries, usually with their stalks attached; the
pericarp is greyish-brown, or blackish and wrinkled; and the seed, when
present, is hard, white and oily. The odour of cubebs is agreeable and
aromatic; the taste, pungent, acrid, slightly bitter and persistent.
About 15% of a volatile oil is obtained by distilling cubebs with water;
after rectification with water, or on keeping, this deposits rhombic
crystals of camphor of cubebs, C15H26O; cubebene, the liquid portion,
has the formula C15H24. Cubebin, CH2[O]2C6H3.CH:CH.CH2OH, is a
crystalline substance existing in cubebs, discovered by Eugene Soubeiran
and Capitaine in 1839; it may be prepared from cubebene, or from the
pulp left after the distillation of the oil. The drug, along with gum,
fatty oils, and malates of magnesium and calcium, contains also about 1%
of cubebic acid, and about 6% of a resin.
The dose of the fruit is 30 to 60 grains, and the British Pharmacopoeia
contains a tincture with a dose of 1/2 to 1 drachm. The volatile
oil--oleum cubebae--is also official, and is the form in which this drug
is most commonly used, the dose being 5 to 20 minims, which may be
suspended in mucilage or given after meals in a cachet. The drug has the
typical actions of a volatile oil, but exerts some of them in an
exceptional degree. Thus it is liable to cause a cutaneous erythema in
the course of its excretion by the skin; it has a marked diuretic
action; and it is a fairly efficient disinfectant of the urinary
passages. Its administration causes the appearance in the urine of a
salt of cubebic acid which is precipitated by heat or nitric acid, and
is therefore liable to be mistaken for albumin, when these two most
common tests for the occurrence of albuminuria are applied. Cubebs is
frequently used in the form of cigarettes for asthma, chronic
pharyngitis and hay-fever. A small percentage of cubebs is also commonly
included in lozenges designed for use in bronchitis, in which the
antiseptic and expectoral properties of the drug are useful. But the
most important therapeutic application of this drug is in gonorrhoea,
where its antiseptic action is of much value. As compared with copaiba
in this connexion cubebs has the advantages of being less disagreeable
to take and somewhat less likely to disturb the digestive apparatus in
prolonged administration. The introduction of the drug into medicine is
supposed to have been due to the Arabian physicians in the middle ages.
Cubebs were formerly candied and eaten whole, or used ground as a
seasoning for meat. Their modern employment in England as a drug dates
from 1815. "Cubebae" were purchased in 1284 and 1285 by Lord Clare at
2s. 3d. and 2s. 9d. per lb. respectively; and in 1307 1 lb. for the
king's wardrobe cost 9s., a sum representing about L3, 12s. in present
value (Rogers, _Hist. of Agriculture and Prices_, i. 627-628, ii. 544).
A closely allied species, _Piper Clusii_, produces the African cubebs or
West African black-pepper, the berry of which is smoother than that of
common cubebs and usually has a curved pedicel. In the 14th century it
was imported into Europe from the Grain Coast, under the name of pepper,
by merchants of Rouen and Lippe.
CUBICLE (Lat. _cubiculum_), a small chamber containing a couch or a bed.
The small rooms opening into the atrium of a Pompeian house are known as
cubicula. In modern English schools "cubicle" is the term given to the
separate small bedrooms into which the dormitories are divided, as
opposed to the system of large open dormitories.
CUBITT, THOMAS (1788-1855), English builder, was born at Buxton, near
Norwich, on the 25th of February 1788. Few men have exhibited greater
self-reliance in early life in the pursuit of a successful career. In
his nineteenth year, when he was working as a journeyman carpenter, his
father died, and he tried to better his position by going on a voyage to
India, as captain's joiner. He returned to London, two years after, in
the possession of a small capital, and began business as a carpenter.
The growth of his establishment was steady and rapid. He was one of the
first to combine several trades in a "builder's" business; and this very
much increased his success. One of the earlier works which gave him
reputation was the London Institution in Finsbury Circus; but it is from
1824 that the vast building operations date which identify his name with
many splendid ranges of London houses, such as Tavistock, Gordon,
Belgrave and Lowndes Squares, and the district of South Belgravia. While
these and similar extensive operations were in progress, a financial
panic, which proved ruinous to many, was surmounted in his case by a
determined spirit and his integrity of character. He took great interest
in sanitary measures, and published, for private circulation, a pamphlet
on the general drainage of London, the substance of which was afterwards
embodied in a letter to _The Times_; the plan he advocated was
subsequently adopted by the conveyance of the sewage matter some
distance below London. He advocated the provision of open spaces in the
environs of London as places of public recreation, and was one of the
originators of Battersea Park, the first of the people's parks. At a
late period he received professionally the recognition of royalty, the
palace at Osborne being erected after his designs, and under his
superintendence; and in the _Life of the Prince Consort_ he is described
by Queen Victoria as one "than whom a better and kinder man did not
exist." In 1851, although he was not identified with the management of
the Great Exhibition, he showed the warmest sympathy with its objects,
and aided its projectors in many ways, especially in the profitable
investment of their surplus funds. Cubitt, when he rose to be a
capitalist, never forgot the interests and well-being of his workpeople.
He was elected president of the Builders' Society some time before his
death, which took place at his seat Denbies, near Dorking, on the 20th
of December 1855.
His son, George Cubitt (1828- ), who had a long and useful
parliamentary career, as Conservative member for West Surrey (1860-1865)
and Mid-Surrey (1885-1892), was in 1892 raised to the peerage as Baron
Ashcombe.
CUBITT, SIR WILLIAM (1785-1861), English engineer, was born in 1785 at
Dilham in Norfolk, where his father was a miller. After serving an
apprenticeship of four years (1800-1804) as a joiner and cabinetmaker at
Stalham, he became associated with an agricultural-machine maker, named
Cook, who resided at Swanton. In 1807 he patented self-regulating sails
for windmills, and in 1812 he entered the works of Messrs Ransome of
Ipswich, where he soon became chief engineer, and ultimately a partner.
Meanwhile, the subject of the employment of criminals had been much in
his thoughts; and the result was his introduction of the treadmill about
1818. In 1826 he removed to London, where he gained a very large
practice as a civil engineer. Among his works were the Oxford canal, the
Birmingham & Liverpool Junction Canal, the improvement of the river
Severn, the Bute docks at Cardiff, the Black Sluice drainage and its
outfall sluice at Boston harbour, the Middlesborough docks and coal
drops in the Tees, and the South-Eastern railway, of which he was chief
engineer. The Hanoverian government consulted him about the harbour and
docks at Harburg; the water-works of the city of Berlin were constructed
under his immediate superintendence; he was asked to report on the
construction of the Paris & Lyons railway; and he was consulting
engineer for the line from Boulogne to Amiens. Among his later works
were two floating landing stages at Liverpool, and the bridge for
carrying the London turnpike across the Medway at Rochester. In 1851,
when he was president of the Institution of Civil Engineers, he was
knighted for his services in connexion with the buildings erected in
Hyde Park for the exhibition of that year. He retired from active work
in 1858, and died on the 13th of October 1861 at his house on Clapham
Common, London. His son, Joseph Cubitt (1811-1872), was trained under
him, and was engineer of various railways, including the Great Northern,
London, Chatham & Dover, and part of the London & South-Western.
CUCHULINN (_Cuchulinn_; pronounced "Coohoollin"), the chief warrior in
the Conchobar-Cuchulinn or older heroic (Ulster) cycle of Ireland. The
story of his origin is very obscure. The god Lug is represented as
having been swallowed in a draught of wine by his mother Dechtire,
sister of Conchobar, who was king of Ulster. But it is not unlikely that
this story was invented to supersede the account of the incestuous union
of Conchobar with his sister, which seems to be hinted at on various
occasions. Usually, however, he is styled son of Sualdam, an Ulster
warrior who plays a very inferior part in the cycle. His earliest name
was Setanta, and he was brought up at Dun Imbrith (Louth). When he was
six years of age he announced his intention of going to Conchobar's
court at Emain Macha (Navan Rath near Armagh) to play with the boys
there. He defeats all the boys in marvellous fashion and is received as
one of their number. Shortly after he kills Culann, the smith's hound, a
huge watch-dog. The smith laments that all his property is of no value
now that his watchman is slain, whereupon the young hero offers to guard
his domains until a whelp of the hound's has grown. From this the boy
received the name of Cu Chulinn or Culann's Hound. The next year
Cuchulinn receives arms, makes his first foray, and slays the three sons
of Necht, redoubtable hereditary foes of the Ulstermen, in the plain of
Meath. The men of Ulster decide that Cuchulinn must marry, as all the
women of Ireland are in love with him. Chosen envoys fail to find a
bride worthy of him after a year's search, but the hero goes straight to
Emer, the daughter of Forgall the Wily, at Lusk (county Dublin). The
lady is promised to him if he will go to learn chivalry of Domnall the
Soldierly and the amazon Scathach in Alba. After enduring great
hardships he goes through the course and leaves a son Connlaech behind
in Scotland by another amazon, Aife. On his return he carries off and
weds Emer. He is represented as living at Dun Delgan (Dundalk). The
greatest of all the hero's achievements was the defence of the frontier
of Ulster against the forces of Medb, queen of Connaught, who had come
to carry off the famous Brown Bull of Cualnge (Cooley). The men of
Ulster were all suffering from a strange debility, and Cuchulinn had to
undertake the defence single-handed from November to February. This was
when he was seventeen years of age. The cycle contains a large number of
episodes, such as the gaining of the champion's portion and the tragical
death by the warrior's hand of his own son Connlaech. When he was
twenty-seven he met with his end at the hands of Lugaid, son of Curoi
MacDaire, the famous Munster warrior, and the children of Calatin Dana,
in revenge for their father's death (see CELT: _Irish Literature_).
Medieval Christian synchronists make Cuchulinn's death take place about
the beginning of the Christian era. It is not necessary to regard
Cuchulinn as a form of the solar hero, as some writers have done. Most,
if not all, of his wonderful attributes may be ascribed to the Irish
predilection for the grotesque. It is true that Cuchulinn seems to stand
in a special relation to the Tuatha De Danann leader, the god Lug, but
in primitive societies there is always a tendency to ascribe a divine
parentage to men who stand out pre-eminently in prowess beyond their
fellows.
See A. Nutt, _Cuchulainn, the Irish Achilles_ (London, 1900); E. Hull,
_The Cuchullin Saga_ (London, 1898). (E. C. Q.)
CUCKOO, or CUCKOW, as the word was formerly spelt, the common name of a
well-known and often-heard bird, the _Cuculus canorus_ of Linnaeus. In
some parts of the United Kingdom it is more frequently called gowk, and
it is the Gr. _[Greek: kokkux]_, the Ital. _cuculo_ or _cucco_, the Fr.
_coucou_, the Ger. _Kuckuk_, the Dutch _koekkoek_, the Dan. _kukker_ or
_gjog_, and the Swed. _gok._ The oldest English spelling of the name
seems to have been _cuccu_.
No single bird has perhaps so much occupied the attention both of
naturalists and of those who are not naturalists, or has had so much
written about it, as the common cuckoo, and of no bird perhaps have more
idle tales been told. Its strange and, according to the experience of
most people, its singular habit of entrusting its offspring to
foster-parents is enough to account for much of the interest which has
been so long felt in its history; but this habit is shared probably by
many of its Old World relatives, as well as in the New World by birds
which are not in any degree related to it. The cuckoo is a summer
visitant to the whole of Europe, reaching even far within the Arctic
circle, and crossing the Mediterranean from its winter quarters in
Africa at the end of March or beginning of April. Its arrival is at once
proclaimed by the peculiar and in nearly all languages onomatopoeic cry
of the cock--a true song in the technical sense of the word, since it is
confined to the male sex and to the season of love. In a few days the
cock is followed by the hen, and amorous contests between keen and
loud-voiced suitors are to be commonly noticed, until the respective
pretensions of the rivals are decided. Even by night they are not
silent; but as the season advances the song is less frequently heard,
and the cuckoo seems rather to avoid observation as much as possible,
the more so since whenever it shows itself it is a signal for all the
small birds of the neighbourhood to be up in its pursuit, just as though
it were a hawk, to which indeed its mode of flight and general
appearance give it an undoubted resemblance--a resemblance that misleads
some into confounding it with the birds of prey, instead of recognizing
it as a harmless if not a beneficial destroyer of hairy caterpillars.
Thus pass away some weeks. Towards the middle or end of June its
"plain-song" cry alters; it becomes rather hoarser in tone, and its
first syllable or note is doubled. Soon after it is no longer heard at
all, and by the middle of July an old cuckoo is seldom to be found in
the British Islands, though a stray example, or even, but very rarely,
two or three in company, may occasionally be seen for a month longer. Of
its breeding comparatively few have any personal experience. Yet a
diligent search for and peering into the nests of several of the
commonest little birds--more especially the pied wagtail (_Motacilla
lugubris_), the titlark (_Anthus pratensis_), the reed-wren
(_Acrocephalus streperus_), and the hedge-sparrow (_Accentor
modularis_)--will be rewarded by the discovery of the egg of the
mysterious stranger which has been surreptitiously introduced, and those
who wait till this egg is hatched may be witnesses (as was Edward Jenner
in the 18th century) of the murderous eviction of the rightful tenants
of the nest by the intruder, who, hoisting them one after another on his
broad back, heaves them over to die neglected by their own parents, of
whose solicitous care he thus becomes the only object. In this manner he
thrives, and, so long as he remains in the country of his birth his
wants are anxiously supplied by the victims of his mother's dupery. The
actions of his foster-parents become, when he is full grown, almost
ludicrous, for they often have to perch between his shoulders to place
in his gaping mouth the delicate morsels he is too indolent or too
stupid to take from their bills. Early in September he begins to shift
for himself, and then follows the seniors of his kin to more southern
climes.
So much caution is used by the hen cuckoo in choosing a nest in which to
deposit her egg that the act of insertion has been but seldom witnessed.
The nest selected is moreover often so situated, or so built, that it
would be an absolute impossibility for a bird of her size to lay her egg
therein by sitting upon the fabric as birds commonly do; and there have
been a few fortunate observers who have actually seen the deposition of
the egg upon the ground by the cuckoo, who, then taking it in her bill,
introduces it into the nest. Of these, the earliest in Great Britain
seem to have been two Scottish lads, sons of Mr Tripeny, a farmer in
Coxmuir, who, as recorded by Macgillivray (_Brit. Birds_, iii. 130, 131)
from information communicated to him by Mr Durham Weir, saw most part of
the operation performed, June 24, 1838. But perhaps the most
satisfactory evidence on the point is that of Adolf Muller, a forester
at Gladenbach in Darmstadt, who says (_Zoolog. Garten_, 1866, pp. 374,
375) that through a telescope he watched a cuckoo as she laid her egg on
a bank, and then conveyed the egg in her bill to a wagtail's nest.
Cuckoos, too, have been not unfrequently shot as they were carrying a
cuckoo's egg, presumably their own, in their bill, and this has probably
given rise to the vulgar, but seemingly groundless, belief that they
suck the eggs of other kinds of birds. More than this, Mr G. D. Rowley,
who had much experience of cuckoos, declares (_Ibis_, 1865, p. 186) his
opinion to be that traces of violence and of a scuffle between the
intruder and the owners of the nest at the time of introducing the egg
often appear, whence we are led to suppose that the cuckoo ordinarily,
when inserting her egg, excites the fury (already stimulated by her
hawk-like appearance) of the owners of the nest by turning out one or
more of the eggs that may be already laid therein, and thus induces the
dupe to brood all the more readily and more strongly what is left to
her. Of the assertion that the cuckoo herself takes any interest in the
future welfare of the egg she has foisted on her victim, or of its
product, there is no good evidence.
But a much more curious assertion has also been made, and one that at
first sight appears so incomprehensible as to cause little surprise at
the neglect it long encountered. To this currency was first given by
Salerne (_L'Hist. nat._ &c., Paris, 1767, p. 42), who was, however,
hardly a believer in it, and it is to the effect, as he was told by an
inhabitant of Sologne, that the egg of a cuckoo resembles in colour that
of the eggs normally laid by the kind of bird in whose nest it is
placed. In 1853 the same notion was prominently and independently
brought forward by Dr A. C. E. Baldamus (_Naumannia_, 1853, pp.
307-325), and in time became known to English ornithologists, most of
whom were naturally sceptical as to its truth, since no likeness
whatever is ordinarily apparent in the very familiar case of the
blue-green egg of the hedge-sparrow and that of the cuckoo, which is so
often found beside it.[1] Dr Baldamus based his notion on a series of
eggs in his cabinet,[2] a selection from which he figured in
illustration of his paper, and, however the thing may be accounted for,
it seems impossible to resist, save on one supposition, the force of the
testimony these specimens afford. This one supposition is that the eggs
have been wrongly ascribed to the cuckoo, and that they are only
exceptionally large examples of the eggs of the birds in the nests of
which they were found, for it cannot be gainsaid that some such abnormal
examples are occasionally to be met with. But it is well known that
abnormally large eggs are not only often deficient in depth of colour,
but still more often in stoutness of shell. Applying these rough
criteria to Dr Baldamus's series, most of the specimens stood the test
very well.
There are some other considerations to be urged. For instance, Herr
Braune, a forester at Greiz in the principality of Reuss (_Naumannia,
tom. cit._ pp. 307, 313), shot a hen cuckoo as she was leaving the nest
of an icterine warbler (_Hypolais icterina_). In the oviduct of this
cuckoo he found an egg coloured very like that of the warbler, and on
looking into the nest he found there an exactly similar egg, which there
can be no reasonable doubt had just been laid by that very cuckoo.
Moreover, Herr Grunack (_Journ. fur Orn._, 1873, p. 454) afterwards
found one of the most abnormally coloured specimens, quite unlike the
ordinary egg of the cuckoo, to contain an embryo so fully formed as to
show the characteristic zygodactyl feet of the bird, thus proving
unquestionably its parentage.
On the other hand, we must bear in mind the numerous instances in which
not the least similarity can be traced--as in the not uncommon case of
the hedge-sparrow already mentioned, and if we attempt any explanatory
hypothesis it must be one that will fit all round. Such an explanation
seems to be this. We know that certain kinds of birds resent
interference with their nests much less than others, and among them it
may be asserted that the hedge-sparrow will patiently submit to various
experiments. She will brood with complacency the egg of a redbreast
(_Erithacus rubecula_), so unlike her own, and for aught we know to the
contrary may even be colour-blind. In the case of such a species there
would be no need of anything further to ensure success--the terror of
the nest-owner at seeing her home invaded by a hawk-like giant, and some
of her treasures tossed out, would be enough to stir her motherly
feelings so deeply that she would without misgiving, if not with joy
that something had been spared to her, resume the duty of incubation so
soon as the danger was past. But with other species it may be, and
doubtless is, different. Here assimilation of the introduced egg to
those of the rightful owner may be necessary, for there can hardly be a
doubt as to the truth of Dr Baldamus's theory as to the object of the
assimilation being to render the cuckoo's egg "less easily recognized by
the foster-parents as a substituted one." It is especially desirable to
point out that there is not the slightest ground for imagining that the
cuckoo, or any other bird, can voluntarily influence the colour of the
egg she is about to lay. Over that she can have no control, but its
destination she can determine. It would seem also impossible that a
cuckoo, having laid an egg, should look at it, and then decide from its
appearance in what bird's nest she should put it. That the colour of an
egg-shell can be in some mysterious way affected by the action of
external objects on the perceptive faculties of the mother is a notion
too wild to be seriously entertained. Consequently, only one explanation
of the facts can here be suggested. Every one who has sufficiently
studied the habits of animals will admit the influence of heredity. That
there is a reasonable probability of each cuckoo most commonly putting
her eggs in the nest of the same species of bird, and of this habit
being transmitted to her posterity, does not seem to be a very violent
supposition. Without attributing any wonderful sagacity to her, it does
not seem unlikely that the cuckoo which had once successfully foisted
her egg on a reed-wren or a titlark should again seek for another
reed-wren's or another titlark's nest (as the case may be), when she had
another egg to dispose of, and that she should continue her practice
from one season to another. It stands on record (_Zoologist_, 1873, p.
3648) that a pair of wagtails built their nest for eight or nine years
running in almost exactly the same spot, and that in each of those years
they fostered a young cuckoo, while many other cases of like kind,
though not perhaps established on so good authority, are believed to
have happened. Such a habit could hardly fail to become hereditary, so
that the daughter of a cuckoo which always put her egg into a
reed-wren's, titlark's or wagtail's nest would do as did her mother.
Furthermore it is unquestionable that, whatever variation there may be
among the eggs laid by different individuals of the same species, there
is a strong family likeness between the eggs laid by the same
individual, even at the interval of many years, and it can hardly be
questioned that the eggs of the daughter would more or less resemble
those of her mother. Hence the supposition may be fairly credited that
the habit of laying a particular style of egg is also likely to become
hereditary. Combining this supposition with that as to the cuckoo's
habit of using the nest of the same species becoming hereditary, it will
be seen that it requires only an application of the principle of natural
selection to show the probability of this principle operating in the
course of time to produce the facts asserted by the anonymous Solognot
of the 18th century, and by Dr Baldamus and others since. The particular
_gens_ of cuckoo which inherited and transmitted the habit of depositing
in the nest of any particular species of bird eggs having more or less
resemblance to the eggs of that species would prosper most in those
members of the _gens_ where the likeness was strongest, and the other
members would (_ceteris paribus_) in time be eliminated. As already
shown, it is not to be supposed that all species, or even all
individuals of a species, are duped with equal ease. The operation of
this kind of natural selection would be most needed in those cases where
the species are not easily duped--that is, in those cases which occur
the least frequently. Here it is we find it, for observation shows that
eggs of the cuckoo deposited in nests of the red-backed shrike (_Lanius
collurio_), of the bunting (_Emberiza miliaria_), and of the icterine
warbler approximate in their colouring to eggs of those species--species
in whose nests the cuckoo rarely (in comparison with others) deposits
eggs. Of species which are more easily duped, such as the hedge-sparrow,
mention has already been made.
More or less nearly allied to the British cuckoo are many other forms of
the genus from various parts of Africa, Asia and their islands, while
one even reaches Australia. In some cases the chief difference is said
to lie in the diversity of voice--a character only to be appreciated by
those acquainted with the living birds, and though of course some regard
should be paid to this distinction, the possibility of birds using
different "dialects" according to the locality they inhabit must make it
a slender specific diagnostic. All these forms are believed to have
essentially the same habits as the British cuckoo, and, as regards
parasitism the same is to be said of the large cuckoo of southern Europe
and North Africa (_Coccystes glandarius_), which victimizes pies (_Pica
mauritanica_ and _Cyanopica cooki_) and crows (_Corvus cornix_). True it
is that an instance of this species, commonly known as the great spotted
cuckoo, having built a nest and hatched its young, is on record, but the
later observations of others tend to cast doubt on the credibility of
the ancient report. It is worthy of remark that the eggs of this bird so
closely resemble those of one of the pies in whose nest they have been
found, that even expert zoologists have been deceived by them, only to
discover the truth when the cuckoo's embryo had been extracted from the
supposed pie's egg. This species of cuckoo, easily distinguishable by
its large size and long crest, has more than once made its appearance as
a straggler in the British Isles. Equally parasitic are many other
cuckoos, belonging chiefly to genera which have been more or less
clearly defined as _Cacomantis_, _Chrysococcyx_, _Eudynamis_,
_Oxylophus_, _Polyphasia_ and _Surniculus_, and inhabiting parts of the
Ethiopian, Indian and Australian regions;[3] but there are certain
aberrant forms of Old World cuckoos which unquestionably do not shirk
parental responsibilities. Among these especially are the birds placed
in or allied to the genera _Centropus_ and _Coua_--the former having a
wide distribution from Egypt to New South Wales, living much on the
ground and commonly called lark-heeled cuckoos; the latter bearing no
English name, and limited to the island of Madagascar. These build a
nest, not perhaps in a highly finished style of architecture, but one
that serves its end.
Respecting the cuckoos of America, the evidence, though it has been
impugned, is certainly enough to clear them from the charge which
attaches to so many of their brethren of the Old World. There are two
species very well known in parts of the United States and some of the
West Indian Islands (_Coccyzus Americanus_ and _C. erythrophthalmus_),
and each of them has occasionally visited Europe. They both build
nests--remarkably small structures when compared with those of other
birds of their size--and faithfully incubate their delicate sea-green
eggs. In the south-western states of the Union and thence into Central
America is found another curious form of cuckoo (_Geococcyx_)--the
chaparral-cock of northern and paisano of southern settlers. The first
of these names it takes from the low brushwood (_chaparral_) in which it
chiefly dwells, and the second is said to be due to its pheasant-like
(_faisan_ corrupted into _paisano_, properly a countryman) appearance as
it runs on the ground. Indeed, one of the two species of the genus was
formerly described as a _Phasianus_. They both have short wings, and
seem never to fly, but run with great rapidity. Returning to arboreal
forms, the genera _Neomorphus_, _Diplopterus_, _Saurothera_ and _Piaya_
(the last two commonly called rain-birds, from the belief that their cry
portends rain) may be noticed--all of them belonging to the Neotropical
region; but perhaps the most curious form of American cuckoos is the ani
(_Crotophaga_), of which three species inhabit the same region. The
best-known species (_C. ani_) is found throughout the Antilles and on
the opposite continent. In most of the British colonies it is known as
the black witch, and is accused of various malpractices--it being, in
truth, a perfectly harmless if not a beneficial bird. As regards its
propagation this aberrant form of cuckoo departs in one direction from
the normal habit of birds, for several females, unite to lay their eggs
in one nest. It is evident that incubation is carried on socially, since
an intruder on approaching the rude nest will disturb perhaps half a
dozen of its sable proprietors, who, loudly complaining, seek safety
either in the leafy branches of the tree that holds it, or in the
nearest available covert, with all the speed that their feeble powers of
flight permit. (A. N.)