266 A Few Notes on Bird Life, &c. [Sess. 



ground, and carrying it in her mouth, deposits it in a nest ; 

 and there is a case recorded where a cuckoo was shot while so 

 conveying her egg. The only cuckoo's egg I ever found was 

 in a hedge-sparrow's nest in a very dense bush. I do not 

 say in this instance that it would have been absolutely im- 

 possible for the parent bird to have got into the nest, but it 

 would certainly have been with very great difficulty. Young 

 cuckoos are very unlike the mature birds in colour : they are 

 brown, of a shade somewhat like that of the woodcock, and do 

 not obtain the bluish-grey colour till their first moult. My 

 favourite place for reading and observation at Stoke, during 

 the absence of my friend on magisterial or other business, is 

 a summer-house facing a long gravel-walk in the garden — a 

 quiet, retired spot among the trees, having on either side a 

 very large Pinus pinaster. In front of the summer-house I 

 always scatter in the walk hemp and other seeds to attract 

 the birds, so that I am seldom there without company. One 

 day in August, while reading there, a squirrel came down 

 one of the pines close to me and trotted off straight to the 

 fruit-garden, where he would doubtless find plenty of suitable 

 food. Preparatory to another visit from him, I put a number 

 of nuts in a low fork of the pine, and sitting there the next 

 day, I heard the well-known call of the nuthatch, and soon 

 saw the bird creep down the tree and stick a nut in the rough 

 bark, and cleverly open it in the manner mentioned by me in 

 a former communication to our Club.'^ This bird came daily 

 for nuts during my visit, and I showed my friend the nut- 

 shells studded about in the bark crevices. The nuthatches 

 are great favourites with both of us, being always so peculiar 

 in their habits, and so active and cheerful ; and they are un- 

 likely to leave that locality while there are so many fine filberts 

 in the Baronet's garden close at hand. I have never found 

 the nest of the nuthatch, but it is said that they often breed 

 in holes made by woodpeckers, and if the entrance is large 

 they partially fill it up with clay. 



I shall now speak of the hawfinch. On my first walk last 

 year with my friend through the vegetable garden, I noticed 

 that some pea-pods were split open in a manner peculiar to 

 the operations of the hawfinch, and I soon saw that a pair of 



1 See ' Transactions,' vol. i. p. 184 (Sess. 1883-84). 



