NOTES. 291 



to be a visitor from the Continent." It was one of a small 

 flock. 



That the flocks of Crossbills which from time to time make 

 their appearance on the east coast of Scotland and in the 

 Orkney and Shetland Isles are Scandinavian, or at any rate 

 North European, in origin, has always seemed to me highly 

 probable. The case appears to have much in common with 

 that of the Greater Spotted Woodpecker. 



William Evans. 



LITTLE BUNTING IN KENT. 



Mr. Oliver H. Wild, a student in the Edinburgh University, 

 brought me for identification a fine adult male Little Bunting 

 {Emberiza ptisilla) which had been captured, along with some 

 Linnets, at Dover on the 16th of November, 1907. The bird 

 was alive when I saw it, and the bird-catcher was unaware 

 of the rarity of his capture. I may say that quite a number 

 of Little Buntings arrived at Fair Isle in the late autumn, 

 but appear to have escaped notice elsewhere. They are 

 partial to the company of Twites, and are difficult to detect. 



William Eagle Clarke. 



THE INCUBATION PERIOD IN THE CUCKOO. 



Ornithologists must often have observed that the young 

 Cuckoo usually hatches out either together with, or before, 

 the offspring of the species selected as foster-parents. It 

 may be assumed, therefore, that the egg of the Cuckoo takes 

 a shorter time to incubate than those of the species Avith 

 which it is found, since it is rarely, if ever, placed in the nest 

 of the dupe until after one or more eggs have been laid therein ; 

 frequently not until the clutch has been completed and 

 brooding has begun. 



I obtained evidence of this in the summer of 1900, when, 

 towards the middle of May, I found a nest of a Hedge- 

 sparrow {Accentor modularis) containing two eggs. The 

 exact date of this discovery I unfortunately did not, at the 

 time, record ; but eleven or twelve days later — 27th May — 

 I again inspected the nest, and found in it a third egg, that 

 of a cuckoo, which, on examination, proved to be chipped, 

 and on the afternoon of the same day the young bird hatched 

 out. For the sake of greater convenience in studying its 

 development I removed it to the nest of another Hedge- 

 sparrow under my bedroom window. Nevertheless, the 

 Hedge-sparrow of the first nest continued to brood the 

 remaining two eggs — her own ; but, on the 29tli she 

 abandoned her task. Breaking these two eggs I found that 



