176 THE BIRDS OF COOKHAM AND THE NEIGHBOURHOOD. 
feed it. The bird was quite full grown, and Mr. Bartlett 
tells me he has often heard it ery ‘‘ cuckoo.” 
At Cookham the Cuckoo is plentiful in some years, but at 
other times scarce, and I have noticed a curious fact, that in 
those years when the bird is commonest, the Wryneck, which 
is called the ‘‘ Cuckoo’s Mate” by the villagers, is seen only 
sparingly, and also when the latter bird is plentiful, the Cuckoo 
is comparatively rare. For instance, in 1865 Cuckoos were very 
numerous, and Mr. Briggs found four eggs in the gardens at 
Formosa alone, but in 1866 the bird was seldom seen or heard ; 
while the Wryneck was very common, several being shot in the 
neighbourhood. Again, this year (1867) the Cuckoo was more 
common, but there were very few Wrynecks. According to 
Mr. Briggs’s experience, and my own, the nest generally selected 
by the Cuckoo near Cookham is that of the Pied Wagtail 
(M. Yarrellii), and in nearly every instance the young birds 
we have noticed flying about towards the end of July or the 
beginning of August have been fed by this same bird. ‘The 
ege deposited by the Cuckoo has always closely resembled those 
of the Wagtail, and I have more than once been inclined to 
disbelieve Mr. Briggs when he has shown me the eggs, as to 
there being a Cuckoo’s in the nest, so alike were they, and 
but for a slight predominance in the size of the Cuckoo’s egg, 
it would be almost impossible to distinguish one from the other. 
However, in every instance a young Cuckoo has appeared in 
due course, and the proper inhabitants of the nest having been 
ejected, has remained master of the field. Mr. Briggs thinks that 
the old birds, although they cease to call, do not leave the 
young ones until they are able to fly, when they all quit the 
country together. I have sometimes seen very late birds, and 
well remember watching a young Cuckoo catching flies in the 
grounds of the Grove. It was towards the middle of September, 
1865, and I was standing in the midst of a clump of fir and ash 
trees, when I saw the bird descend and catch an insect. It 
settled on a branch not twenty yards off, whence it again des- 
cended, and took a fly or other insect off the trunk of one of the 
