102 The Oologisfs' Record, December i, 1921. 



It was known to many of his friends that Mr. Chance had studied 

 the Cuckoo's habits closely for several years, and had marked down 

 for special observation, a female Cuckoo which he knew so well, 

 that he had named her after one of the prominent ladies of the film 

 worlcj. Indeed, so well had he studied this particular bird, that by 

 this spring he was able to predict, and did so to his friends, the 

 exact hour at which she would lay her eggs, and the nests in which 

 she would laj^ them. Had Mr. Chance not known so much, he could 

 not have made the ample preparations that he did to secure a film 

 showing exactly what took place when this particular bird laid her 

 eggs. 



The series of pictures shown depicted this Cuckoo first taking 

 her usual perch on a tree not far from th6 nest about to be used, 

 later flying down to the nest, mobbed meanwhile by the Meadow 

 Pipits to which it belonged, then taking one of their eggs in her bill, 

 and seating herself on the nest and finally flying away with the egg 

 of the Meadow Pipit in her bill. The film showed this one Cuckoo 

 approaching and laying in several nests. 



Mr. Chance has established a fact that has long been disputed 

 by eminent ornithologists, namely, that the Cuckoo eats the egg 

 which she removes, and, in this connection, he remarked that he 

 thought she removed the fosterer's egg before laying her own in 

 order that she might not inadvertently remove and destroy her own 



egg- 

 Other pictures showed the 3'oung Cuckoo ousting his foster 



brothers from the nest, a procedure which the mother Meadow 



Pipit, returning to the nest while this was in progress, hardly seemed 



to understand, although more than one person present fancied they 



detected upon her quite a worried maternal expression. 



Viscount Grey remarked that it would be most interesting to 



learn the methods of the Cuckoo in making use of the nests of other 



foster parents, and we are betraying no secret when we state that 



Mr. Chance hopes to secure next year films of what takes place in 



the case of Cuckoos using nests of other species. 



NESTING OF THE COMMON SNIPE IN NORTH KENT. 



Mr. G. J. Scholey records the finding of a nest of the CommOn Snipe 

 on a marsh in North Kent on 6th July last. The nest, he states, 

 was in a tussock, and similar in all respects to that of the Redshank, 



