152 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



It is unusual to find two species of cuckoo in the same foster 

 bird's nest. Once I found a nest of the Tit, Geobasileus chry- 

 sorrhosa, containing three eggs, besides an egg each of the two 

 Bronze Cuckoos. If these two lively youngsters had been 

 hatched, I suppose it would have been a case of " the survival 

 of the fittest." However, Dr. Ramsay can go one better. In 

 1856, from a nest of the Little Tit, Acanthiza nana, he took no 

 less than six eggs — three belonging to the Tit and three to the 

 Bronze Cuckoos — two of C. plagosus and one of G. basalis. 



As we saw in our observations on the Fantailed Cuckoo, Mr. 

 A. S. Brent can go one higher still as far as cuckoos' eggs are 

 concerned, for in a little Tasmanian Tit's (Acanthiza) nest, he 

 took the eggs of no less than three species — namely, the Fan- 

 tailed, Bronze, and Narrow-billed Bronze Cuckoos. 



Exceptions always seem to prove the rule. Cuckoos, being 

 insectivorous, usually deposit their eggs in the nest of a bird used 

 to similar diet. But here we have a partly graminivorous bird a 

 would-be foster parent. Mr. Ed. Cornwall related to me 

 how he once found a Finch's nest containing the fresh egg 

 of the Narrow-billed Cuckoo. But the strange part of the affair 

 was that the nest also contained the body of the finch, which 

 apparently had been dead some weeks. 



To the Messrs. Brittlebank I am indebted for first-hand in- 

 formation relating to many of the foster parents of various 

 cuckoos. I was present with them at one of our enjoyable 

 outings at the Werribee Gorge, nth October, 1890, when we 

 found the egg of a Narrow-billed Cuckoo in the nest of the New 

 Holland Honey-eater. 



During the visit of the expedition of the Field Naturalists' Club 

 of Victoria, November, 1890, to the Kent Group, we discovered for 

 the first time the egg of the Narrow-billed Cuckoo in the nest of 

 the White-fronted Scrub-Tit, Sericornis frontalis * 



As in the case of the other Bronze Cuckoo, two eggs of the 

 Narrow-billed are occasionally taken in one nest. Here is a 

 curious note from Mr. G. E. Shepherd. At Somerville, 1896, 

 twice he took a Blue Wren's nest containing a clutch of two 

 eggs, together with a Narrow-billed Bronze Cuckoo's egg, and on 

 examination a second cuckoo's egg was found embedded in the 

 grassy material of the nest. 



That cuckoos sometimes deposit their eggs in the foster-bird's 

 nest before its construction is complete is again illustrated by the 

 fact that after removing a pretty clutch of eggs from a Blue 

 Wren's nest I discovered between the grassy folds of the nest 

 the well-known red-sprinkled egg of the Narrow-billed Bronze 

 Cuckoo. 



* 6". gularis, Legge, Victorian Naturalist, 1896. 



