278 Zoology, 



and, with imploring looks and gestures, demanding food ; but 

 the old birds, witn roots or pieces of grass in their bills, 

 seemed quite regardless of them, and intent on their new 

 habitation. Their motions were narrowly watched by a female 

 cuckoo, which I saw constantly near the place, but the wag- 

 tails had placed their second nest within a yard of a door, and 

 so well concealed among some luxuriant ivy, that the cuckoo 

 being often frightened away, was not able to discover the nest. 

 The intruder being thus thwarted in its design, the birds 

 hatched their second brood, which was accidentally destroyed 

 a few days after. In about ten days they actually commenced 

 their third nest, within a few feet of the situation of the second, 

 and brought off their brood in safety. I have repeatedly 

 taken the cuckoo's egg from the wagtail's nest ; in this locality 

 it has a decided preference to it. I do not recollect, except- 

 ing in two instances, jfinding it in any other, once in the 

 hedge-warbler's, and another time in the redstart's nest. In 

 this vicinity whether the wagtail selects the hole of a pollard 

 tree, a cleft in the wall, or a projecting ledge under a bridge, 

 it does not often escape the prying eye of the cuckoo, as in all 

 these situations I have frequently found either egg or young. 

 The cuckoo appears to possess the power of retaining its egg 

 for some some time after it is ready for exclusion. On one 

 occasion I had observed a cuckoo during several days 

 anxiously watching a pair of wagtails building; I saw the 

 cuckoo fly from the nest two or three times before it was half 

 completed; and at last, the labour of the wagtails not going on, 

 I imagine, so rapidly as might be wished, the cuckoo depo- 

 sited its egg before the lining of the nest was finished. The 

 egg, contrary to my expectation, was not thrown out ; and 

 on the following day the wagtail commenced laying, and, as 

 usual, the intruder was hatched at the same time as the rest, 

 and soon had the whole nest to itself. I once observed a cuckoo 

 enter a wagtail's nest, which I had noticed a short time before 

 to contain one egg ; in a few minutes the cuckoo crept from 

 the hole, and was flying away with something in its beak, 

 which proved to be the egg of the wagtail, which it dropped 

 on my firing a gun at it. On examining the nest, the cuckoo 

 had only made an exchange, leaving its own egg for the one 

 taken. In May, 1829, I found two cuckoo's eggs in the same 

 nest, and depended on witnessing a desperate struggle between 

 the parties, but my hopes were frustrated by some person 

 destroying it. — J. D. Hoy. Stoke Nayland, Nov. 28. 1831. 

 The White-tailed Eagle breeds in Captivity. — I believe it is 

 an unusual occurrence for any of the predaceous birds to pro- 

 duce eggs in a state of captivity. I have a white-tailed eagle 

 (Falco albicilla), which was brought from Norway about nine 



