384 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol. iM 



caffra drakenshergi with one egg of the host and two of the cuckoo. 

 The^cuckoo eggs were sufficiently dissimilar in color to suggest that 

 they were laid by different hens. There is, as yet, no evidence to 

 indicate that the same cuckoo may lay more than one egg in a nest. 



While it is true, as stated in my book (Friedmann, 1949a, pp. 

 68-69), that the great majority of the known eggs of the red-chested 

 cuckoo are plain pale chocolate brown or olive brown without any 

 markings, a sufficient number of divergent types since have been 

 recorded from southern Africa to make it seem that there is more 

 variation than was formerly apparent. Thus, in the Bryanston dis- 

 trict, near Johannesburg, Transvaal, Reed (in litt.) found a red- 

 chested cuckoo's egg in a nest of a Cape robin-chat together with 

 one egg of the owner, which it closely resembled, being olive green in 

 color and heavily blotched with reddish brown, the blotches forming 

 an almost solid mass at the obtuse end of the egg. In another nest 

 of the same host species he found another egg of this cuckoo (identity 

 certain because the egg was allowed to hatch and the development 

 of the chick foUov/ed in detail). This egg has a fawn colored ground 

 and was heavil}- blotched with dark reddish brown. Still another 

 parasitized nest of the Cape robin-chat was found containing an egg 

 that presumably was of this cuckoo. It vv'as "off white" in color and 

 very heavily speckled with large, dark brown spots.^ That three 

 such divergent, blotched or spotted eggs were found in one locality 

 seems to eliminate, or to render doubtful, the possibility of their being 

 unusual or pathological in any sense. Still another color variant has 

 recently been described in Northern Rhodesia by Haydock (1950, 

 pp. 149-150) as deep cream in color and with a very rough shell 

 textm'e. 



So few observations are available on the question of whether or 

 not the hen cuckoo removes an egg of the host when depositing one 

 of its own that the following case, incomplete as it is, is of some 

 interest. Liversidge (in litt.) writes me of a parasitized nest of a 

 Cape robin-chat, a bird whose name occurs under several headings in 

 our present discussion. The nest was found by the observer's land- 

 lady, who was certain that one day the nest was empty and the next 

 day it contained an egg of the cuckoo and one of the host. This 

 would suggest that the cuckoo laid the same day as the robin-chat 

 and did not remove an egg at that time. It is, of com-se, not impos- 

 sible that the cuckoo may have laid its agg earher in the day than did 

 the host, and that there was no egg for it to remove. As I have 

 recorded previously (Friedmann, 1949a, pp. 69-70), the red-chested 

 cuckoo seems to lay not infrequently in nests before the host has 



' This epg Is not dissimilar to known eggs of Cucidus cafer; the possibility cannot be ruled out that the 

 egg may have been of the black cuckoo. 



