1 62 BIRDS, BEASTS, AND FISHES 



walls, or in the cherry-blossomed gardens, hunting for eggs, 

 preferring those of robins, sedge-warblers, reed-buntings, and 

 titlarks, say the fenmen ; indeed, they tell you he looks about 

 for eggs just like a boy, hopping from one place to another 

 for eggs to clear his throat. And the old well-worn question 

 arises, Does he suck eggs ? Throughout my sojourn in the 

 Broadlands I watched him, but never caught him yellow- 

 billed, though I have been within a yard of him all unknown 

 to him, and gazed in the bright sunshine upon his full bright 

 eye, sleek, whorish, greedy face, with feelings that he would 

 do anything that pleased him ; for " duty " is a word to 

 cuckoos unknown. But the evidence I have collected from 

 fenmen and others quite satisfies me that the cuckoo does 

 suck eggs ; and though I never caught him, 1 have found eggs 

 sucked that were whole before the cuckoo hopped about them. 

 Moreover, I have met trustworthy men who affirm they have 

 caught him sucking thrushes', blackbirds', decoy ducks' and 

 reed-buntings' eggs. One gunner, whose word is to be 

 relied upon, caught " Mr. Cuckoo " sucking a nest of decoy 

 ducks' eggs, put him up from the nest, and found one egg 

 still untouched, the rest being sucked, after the manner of 

 an old harrier. Upon another occasion the same man was 

 huddled up in some stuff under an alder tree, watching for a 

 leveret, when suddenly a cuckoo alighted on the tree and 

 chortled. Lying still as death, he watched the bird fly down 

 to the ground, when, to his surprise, he saw a duck sitting 

 very close. When the cuckoo approached the nest chortling, 

 the duck got off her eggs and set at him. The cuckoo came 

 on with his wings set out, his tail up, and his head extended, 

 making a hideous noise — " Enough to frighten a man," says 

 the gunner — " a loud, hoarse, hissing noise ; " but just as the 

 fight began, in his excitement the man broke a twig, and the 

 noise alarmed the birds, who both flew off, the gunner find- 

 ing eight eggs, "hard setting on." Another fenman tells me 

 he has caught the cuckoo sucking mavishes' eggs. Another 

 told me he saw a cuckoo flying with a thrush's egg still in 



