290 Habits of the Cuckoo. 



finding two young cuckoos in one nest, in V. 62., VIII. 287. 

 For an explanation of the grounds of our third question we 

 refer to Rennie's Mont Orn. Diet, p. 118 — 120. 



Has any Correspondent ever found the Egg or Young of the 

 Cuckoo in a Nest so situated that the Parent Cuckoo could not 

 possibly sit upon that Nest to deposit its Egg? — In con- 

 sequence of some instances of the egg or young of the 

 cuckoo being found in nests seemingly thus situated, conjec- 

 tures and Speculations on the mode in which the egg had 

 been introduced have been offered : see Professor Rennie in 

 his Mont. Orn. Diet., 120, 121 ; whence we learn that Tem- 

 minck has stated that " the female of the cuckoos, by some 

 means not positively ascertained, carries the eggs which she has 

 layed into the nests of different species of small birds ;" and 

 that M. Vaillant had obtained pretty satisfactory evidence 

 that one at least of the African cuckoos carries the egg in her 

 bill, in order to lay it in nests having a narrow side entrance." 

 The nests which we have known adopted by the common 

 cuckoo were so situated that the cuckoo could have sat upon 

 them. 



Mr. Patrick has communicated, in p. 284. of our present 

 Number, a notice of an instance of a young cuckoo's occupy- 

 ing a robin's nest, so conditioned that the parent cuckoo 

 could scarcely possibly have layed its egg in the nest. Mr. 

 Hewitson, in his British Oology, or Illustrations of the Eggs of 

 British Birds, in treating of the egg of the cuckoo (t. 55.), 

 makes the following remark, applicable to the point under 

 consideration here : — "I should have been exceedingly gra- 

 tified could I have settled two very interesting points which 

 yet remain undetermined; viz. what number of eggs the 

 cuckoo lays in one season, and whether or not it ever carries 

 its egg (after having laid it) to the nest of another bird. Mr. 

 Williamson of Scarborough informs me that he has found its 

 egg in the nest of a rock lark [rock pipit], close under the 

 projecting shelf of a rock, and in a situation where he con- 

 siders it impossible for the cuckoo to have deposited it in any 

 other way. Though not myself inclined in favour of this 

 supposition, yet there is something that renders it highly 

 probable. Unless the cuckoo is thus able to transport its 

 eggs after having laid them, numbers must be dropped to no 

 purpose, when, at the point of laying them, it is unable to 

 find the nest of another bird in which to leave them." 



If the following supposition of Montagu's be the fact, a 

 means of preventing this consequence is otherwise provided. 



Montagu has supposed that " the cuckoo is actually 

 endowed with the property of retaining its egg in the uterus, 



