CUCKOO. 269 



ground, picked up in the bill of the Cuckoo and carried to 

 the selected nest. The species victimised vary greatly ; on the 

 moors the Meadow-Pipit is the favourite (Plate 112), elsewhere 

 the Tree-Pipit, Pied Wagtail, Hedge-Sparrow, Redbreast and 

 Reed- Warbler are frequently selected. The Welsh name of 

 the Meadow-Pipit is " Gwas-y-Gog," the Cuckoo's servant. A 

 long list of other species might be added, including the 

 Wheatear, in whose nest, more than two feet below ground, 

 a young Cuckoo was found. Erratic Cuckoos have placed 

 their eggs in the nests of Jay, Magpie, Kestrel, Little Grebe, 

 Pheasant and Red Grouse. The eggs vary in colour but 

 usually follow certain types which bear striking resemblance 

 to those of favoured hosts, but only one of these is shown on 

 Plate 118. Others closely resemble the Pied Wagtail, Reed- 

 Warbler, Pipit, Skylark and even the blue Hedge-Sparrow. 

 In spite of this simulation no effort seems to be made by the 

 Cuckoo to choose a nest which will match its egg ; occasionally 

 they conform, but it is the exception rather than the rule. 

 Though small birds instinctively mob the Cuckoo, when an 

 egg is once in the nest and after the abnormal fledgling is 

 hatched no attempt is made to dislodge it ; indeed a bird will 

 brood the foster-chick whilst her own lie slowly dying outside 

 the nest. 



When hatched the young Cuckoo, during the first few days 

 of its naked, blind and apparently helpless existence, throws 

 out the unhatched eggs or fellow nestlings. Long after Lottinger 

 and Jenner at the end of the eighteenth century described 

 this wonderful instinct, it was treated as myth, but now the 

 whole process has been carefully watched and described by 

 careful ornithologists, and the camera has recorded the per- 

 formance. Perhaps the best and most philosophical account 

 is that by Mr. W. PL Hudson, who suggests and I believe proves 

 that the strange hollow in the back of the young Cuckoo is 

 peculiarly sensitive ; the bird fidgets when it feels pressure 



