160 A Roadside Tragedy. 



hen Yellow-winged Sugarbirds and a cock Gold-fronted Green 

 Fruilsuckcr among the Finches living together in amity. 



Other notes unavoidably held over till next issue, in- 

 cluding visits to two Farnham and district aviaries. 



A Roadside Tragedy. 



By Dr. L. Lovell-Keays, F.Z.S. 



On the morning of May 9th, c noticed on a door step 

 the scanty but mortal remains of a young Thrush. I natur- 

 ally put it down to Felis domestica but inquiry proved my 

 assulnption to be quite wide of the mark. It seems that a 

 bird which the cottagers declared was a cuckoo was seen devour- 

 ing the Thrush on a gate within i 5 yards of the house, the 

 parent bird meanwhile displaying the greatest possible dis- 

 tress and concern. The supposed cuckoo was driven off and 

 my informants declare it flew into a neighbouring oak tree, and 

 gave vent to its characteristic call. As soon as they went 

 indoors the " cuckoo " returned to the feast and proceeded to 

 oat nearly the whole of the young bird, the mother bird mean- 

 while standing by and uttering notes of most poignant grief, 

 o. much so that the onlookers drove the " cuckoo " c>ff and 

 rescued the mortal remains which were just enough to identify 

 the bird. Now there is no shadow of doubt that some 

 predatory bird actually attacked and devoured a young Thrush 

 within fifty feet of an inhabited house, and that^ although driven 

 off at once returned to the feast. I have three witnesses of that 

 and also the skin of the bird. The only question is whejher 

 the marauder was really a cuckoo or possibly a sparrow- 

 hawk. In any case the bird showed great fearlessness, and 

 unless the sparrowhawk was a tame one would hardly be 

 likely to tolerate such nearness to human beings. More- 

 over, sparrowhawks are very uncommon about here. If a 

 cuckoo, and personally I have very little doubt that it was, 

 as country people are fairly accurate about such Natural 



