1888-89.] -^ ^^'"^ Notes on Bird Life, &c. 265 



I found a young cuckoo in a hedge-sparrow's nest in a thick 

 holly hedge. When I first discovered it, the bird just filled 

 the cavity of the nest, but as it grew the nest would not hold 

 it, and became a small platform on which the bird sat. I 

 think there never could be a more exacting and troublesome 

 offspring : it was whining all day for food, and kept the poor 

 little accentors very hard at work to supply its cravings, and 

 I was not sorry to see it one day fiy across the lawn, and to 

 know that their labours were nearly over. My friend is in 

 the habit of inserting in the local papers what he terms his 

 monthly weather letter, giving a report of temperatures, rain- 

 fall, &c., and in this he introduces any peculiarities in bird 

 life which come under his notice. In this letter of last 

 December is a curious incident regarding the cuckoo, told him 

 by a mutual friend of ours upon whose veracity we can rely, 

 which, with your permission, I shall read. It shows that the 

 instinct of the cuckoo in selecting a nest for her egg is not 

 always unerring. He says : " I may venture to repeat a 

 curious case of the involuntary detention of a cuckoo which 

 was related to me by the late David Smith. In the month 

 of October David was surprised to see a couple of redstarts, 

 which should have taken their departure long ago. He 

 stayed to watch them. They were taking food to a hole in 

 an old willow, which they entered as though they had a nest 

 and were feeding their young. Approaching this hole, he 

 was still more surprised by an extraordinary hissing sound, 

 which he could not make out. Determined to solve the 

 mystery, he fetched some tools and cut open the stump. He 

 found an imprisoned cuckoo, which had grown too large to 

 allow of the possibility of escape by the hole which formed 

 the entrance to the nest. The bird had become crushed and 

 deformed, having no more room to grow, and completely tilled 

 its narrow home. The poor little redstarts had stayed to feed 

 the thankless prisoner, which never got the use of its limbs, 

 and did not long survive its release." We naturally wonder 

 how the egg which produced this young cuckoo was laid in 

 this limited space in the willow, as it was utterly impossible 

 for the old cuckoo to have got in there ; but it is now gener- 

 ally admitted by close observers of the habits of birds that 

 the cuckoo frequently, if not always, lays her egg on the 



