
Life-history of the Cuckoo. 127 
- found similarly marked eggs laid by one and the same Cuckoo, in 
_ the nests of different species; and that he has found Cuckoo’s eggs 
(though rarely) in such nests as have not yet received any eggs of the 
owner,! in which case the Cuckoo is without any pattern of a fixed 
form of colour for its egg. All these points in the argument, are 
very carefully worked out at considerable length, and a large array 
of proofs and instances brought forward to support his views; and 

then our author deduces the conclusion, that all experience hitherto 
known declares in favour of his assertion “that every Cuckoo lays 
; 3 eggs of one colouring only, and consequently (as a general rule) 
lays only in the nest of one species :” and he sums up his argument 
 asfollows: “ every pair or rather each individual Cuckoo is endowed 
with the instinct to lay its eggs in the nests of some one species of 
_ birds, which are fit to act the part of foster parents: so in order 
that these latter may the less readily observe the strange egg, it is 
found to be of similar colouring to their own; and for the same 
_ reasons it is also so disproportionably small. Then every pair of 
_ Cuckoos seeks its old district, or that spot where it breeds, just as 
_ all other birds do.? Here it generally finds those species of insect- 
_ ivorous birds which it requires for its peculiar circumstances: but 
__ assuredly they are not always in the necessary numbers, or perhaps 

_ they may for some cause be breeding earlier or later, than its six 
to eight weeks time for laying? lasts: it will therefore be unable 
to find for each of its eggs a fitting nest of that species to which 
it was prepared to entrust it, and to which it was accustomed ; and 
80 it finds itself obliged to introduce one and another egg, into the 

nests of some other species, if haply by good chance it can do so.* 

1 This is corroborated in the Naturalist for 1852, p. 33. 
2 Blyth’s edition of White’s Selborne, p. 78. 
5 Tegezeit” is the concise German word, for which we have no English 
equivalent, 
‘The Cuckoo however, alone of British birds, is generally supposed to haye 
the faculty of retaining her egg in the ovarium, after it is arrived at maturity, 
for a limited period of time. [Montagu’s Ornith. Dict. Introduction to vol. i., p. 8. 
_ Jesse’s Gleanings in Nat. Hist. vol. ii., p. 125.] If this be correct, it will ac- 
- count for the egg laid by the Cuckoo as it fell to the ground after it was 
_ shot, recorded by Mr. 8, 8. Allen, [Ibis. vol. y., p. 358] and by my friend Mr. 

