LN Pe, INOR LAS OP KENT 83 
to think this than to hold the other theory. 
The viele omemeutters a, cuck-cuck, cuck”’ 
when making love to the female. The hedge- 
sparrow’s nest is one of the commonest in 
which the cuckoo hen lays its eggs, one in 
each nest, a habit the reason for which is as 
yet unexplained by naturalists. As luck 
would have it, the very first nest we found in 
the blackberries illustrated this (see Plate 
XID). The larger cuckoo’s dark. brown 
spotted eggs contrasted strongly with the 
two clear blue spotless and smaller ones of 
the hedge-sparrow.! 
1 Some very interesting details about the cuckoo 
appeared in a number of the Country Side for June, 
1908. One of these birds was observed by a reliable 
authority, who was only at the time a short distance away, 
to go to the nest of a hedge-sparrow, take out one ofits 
eggs and devour it. This was done again. The cuckoo 
was then seen to take her own egg of a dark colour, 
which she had apparently laid on the grass during a 
stay there of a quarter of an hour after the robbery, 
and place it in the nest with her beak, where it was 
handled and was quite warm,the other eggs being cold. 
This settles two questions that have always been in 
dispute as to the cuckoo eating other birds’ eggs and 
that it deposits her eggs in the nest with her beak and 
not with the foot as some have averred. 
