THE OOLOGIST 



51 



reach the nest, and it was truly marvel- 

 ous to behold the determination and cour- 

 age of the two little mites of" birds in 

 their efforts to prevent her. It would be 

 difficult to describe in mere words the won- 

 derfully graceful action of both male birds 

 during their aerial encounters, and indeed 

 the flight of the Cuckoo at times much re- 

 sembled that of a small Falcon. It was 

 about half past ten o'clock when I had 

 first come on the scene of action, and I 

 watched till the forenoon was well-nigh 

 past. I was meditating on the expediency 

 of scaring the Ciickoos away, when the 

 female flew up quietly and came down on 

 the ground very near the nest, but on the 

 farther side of the heather clump in which 

 it was placed. At the same time the male 

 Cuckoo made a hasty swoop towards the 

 nest, was driven off by the Stouechats, and 

 while they were thus engaged the female 

 Cuckoo, with rapid action, darted forward, 

 alighted on the heather, thrust her head 

 and neck through the small opening into 

 the nest, in an instant withdrew and soared 

 aloft, uttering for \\\e first time a cry, not 

 " Cuckoo ! cuckoo ! " but a gurgling, wat- 

 er-bubble kind of note. Her mate immed- 

 iately joiued her, and the two soared away 

 to the wood, he joining in the shout of 

 triumph with fond "Cuckoos!" In a 

 few moments I had run forward to the 

 nest, and, behold ! lying beside the four 

 pretty liltle Stonechats' eggs was a beauti- 

 fully-marked Cuckoo's egg, still wet with 

 the saliva of the mother-bird. The Stone- 

 chats reared their young in peace and 

 safety, but that Cuckoo's egg lies before 

 me as I write, and the sight of it recalls 

 one of the most interesting episodes I ever 

 met in bird-life. 



Black-Throated Bunting. — The ar- 

 ticle in last number in reference to the 

 nest of this species would indicate that it 

 is seldom found as high as five feet from 

 the ground. The past season I found sev- 

 eral which were ten to twelve feet high in 

 the osage orange, and one was in an elm 

 about 15 feet high. F. a. s. 



Common Rail. — Porzana Carolina. 



A NEST WITH EIGHTEEN EGGS. 



W. W. DuNLAP, Esq., of this city, 

 while egg collecting in company with the 

 undersigned, on one of the islands in the 

 Back river, north of this city, on the 6th 

 of June last, found a nest of the Common 

 Rail, i^Pvrzana Carolina)^ containing 

 eighteen eggs. This is double the ordinary 

 number laid by this little species. The 

 nest presented a curious appearance — the 

 eggs being placed one above another, sim- 

 ilar to the mode an artillery man places 

 cannon balls. None of the eggs were ad- 

 vanced in incubation. I question whether 

 this bird could have produced sufficient 

 heat from her body to hatch out the whole. 

 It appears to me that the parent does not 

 wholly rely on its body heat ; that some 

 portion of the incubation of aquatic birds' 

 eggs is produced by solar heat, causing 

 the surroundings of the nest to retain an 

 equal temperature during daytime. This 

 seems reasonable, as the nests of this spe- 

 cies are generally placed in situations sur- 

 rounded by shallow, still water, with suf- 

 ficient grassy covering to hide it from ene- 

 mies. The bird, therefore, in a case like 

 this, would manage to produce young from 

 eighteen eggs by sitting close on them at 

 night, thus retaining an equal temperature 

 to the end. 



MontreaL Wm, Couper. 



Insects Destroying Eggs.^A corres- 

 pondent is anxious to find some method of 

 preventing insects from destroying his 

 eggs. We keep ours in cases in the library, 

 a room in constant use, and have no diffi- 

 culty of this kind to contend with. Per- 

 haps Dr. Wm. Wood will enlighten us. 



Humming Bird. — Sept. 9th being cold 

 and wet, a Humming Bird was caught and 

 brought to us. We fed it with sugar from 

 the lips until morning, when we gave it its 

 liberty. It proved to be a young female, 

 and when first brought, chirped quite loud. 



