374 Recent Ornithological Publications. 



nigricollis, Gmel.) should be apparently a regular winter visitant 

 on the coast near Dunbar ; for that species has certainly a more 

 southern range than P, cormitus (Temm.; P. auritus,\Axm.). 

 The value of the recorded occurrence of Ectopistes migratorius 

 in Scotland forty-two years ago may be appreciated by the fact 

 that a gentleman in Berwickshire liberated several Passenger 

 Pigeons not long since, and his example may have been antici- 

 pated by some early votary of acclimatization. 



In a paper read before the Wiltshire Natural History Society 

 in September 1865, but only just published*, Mr. A. C. Smith 

 calls attention to the remarkable theory as to the colouring of 

 Cuckoos^ eggs, enunciated first by Dr. Baldamus, and more 

 than two years since made known to our readers by Mr. G. D. 

 Rowley (Ibis, 1865, pp. 178-186). Mr. Smith, however, we 

 think does not state Dr. Baldamus's opinion with accuracy. 

 The only sense in which it can be said that the Cuckoo " is able 

 to assimilate them [her own eggs] in colour to the eggs of those 

 birds whose nests she selects" is that the Cuckoo, having laid 

 an egg, searches for the nest of a bird containing eggs of a similar 

 colour in which to deposit it ; and the truth of this may well be 

 doubted. Dr. Baldamus never alleged, so far as we are aware, 

 that the Cuckoo had any power of laying* an egg of what colour 

 she pleased. Granting the facts as the Doctor has stated them, 

 there may well be other explanations of them without assigning 

 to the Cuckoo an undue amount of intelligence. A Darwinian 

 would perhaps say that there is a probability of each Cuckoo 

 most commonly laying its eggs in the nest of the same species 

 of bird, and of this habit being hereditary. By the ordinary 

 operation of natural selection, then, the case would come in time 

 to be as Dr. Baldamus has affirmed it to be. But leaving the 

 cloud-land of theories, our readers may like to know that the 

 long-presumed opinion of the Cuckoo first laying her egg on 

 the ground and then carrying it off for deposition in the nest of 

 some other bird, has of late been singularly confirmed by actual 



* * On certain Peculiarities in the Life-History of the Cuckoo, more 

 especially with reference to the Colouring of its Eggs.' By the Rev. A. 

 C. Smith. 8vo. pp. 1(3. (Extract from the ' Wiltshire Magazine.') 



