8 4 



SPRING 



to eight eggs. She lays an egg on the ground, and then 

 carries it in her beak to the nest, which is often placed in such 

 a situation that she could not deposit the egg in the ordinary 

 way. The egg is very small for her size, though usually 

 rather larger than those of the foster-parents. The nests most 

 often chosen in this country are those of the hedge-sparrow, 

 meadow-pipit, pied wagtail, sedge-warbler, and reed-warbler ; 

 but three or four times as many species are occasionally vic- 



/ _ , timised. The cuckoo's 

 egg does not as a rule 

 present an extremely 

 close likeness to the 

 eggs among which it 

 is laid ; in some cases 

 there is practically 

 no resemblance. Blue 

 cuckoos' eggs seldom 

 if ever occur in this 

 country, though they 

 are said to be met with 

 on the Continent ; and 

 cuckoos' eggs placed 

 among the blue eggs of the hedge-sparrow are of a freckled 

 green. There is no reason to believe that the cuckoo 

 inspects her egg and then chooses a set of other eggs to 

 correspond, as is sometimes said. But although the cuckoo's 

 eggs could not often be mistaken for those of the bird among 

 which they occur, the eggs found in the nests of each species 

 which frequently act as host do approximate to a definite type 

 of colour, and there is a very rough approximation between 

 this typical colour and that of the eggs of the host. Cuckoos' 

 eggs from reed-warblers' nests, for example, have usually 

 a deep bronze-green ground, with the freckled markings 



cuckoo's egg in hedge-sparrow's nest 



