516 THE CUCKOO. 



came out of its cage and fought with my finger, sparring and striking with 

 its wings like a game cock. Its voracity was insatiable. For some weeks 

 after being fully fledged it is fed by its foster-parents. If any one 

 approaches they give it warning, on which it flies off, and are so shy I 

 have seldom got within gunshot. In the parish of Bathgate the nest 

 of the titlark (meadow pipit) is invariably chosen. The same time is 

 required for hatching both birds. On May 19th a pair of titlarks finished 

 their nest. On the 20th, 21st, and 22nd the female laid an egg each day. 

 On one of these days a cuckoo put in one of her eggs ; and on the 23rd the 

 titlark began to sit. On that day fortnight, June 6th, they were all 

 hatched, the cuckoo a third larger than the rest. On the 10th two of the 

 titlarks were lying dead at the bottom of the ditch, where the nest was. 

 The other young titlark had disappeared. On the 13th it had grown so 

 fast it filled the nest. It was constantly gaping for food ; upon its back, 

 from the shoulders downwards, there was a peculiar depression not noticed 

 in any other young bird. The titlarks paid unwearied care. They fed it 

 ten or twelve times an hour. When they brought food they alighted twenty 

 yards from the nest, and stole amongst the grass at the bottom of the 

 ditch, now and then stood still and looked around to see if they were 

 watched — so cunning and jealous of their care." As the nest was too far 

 from his house for close observation he " put it into a titlark's nearer home, 

 in which were five young ones six days old." He "went next day 

 expecting to see the young cuckoo dead, but the female was carefully 

 covering it with outstretched wings from a heavy shower of rain then 

 falling, while her own young ones were lying helpless within two inches of 

 her nest, having been thrust out by the intruder," an incongruity in nature 

 difficult to solve. "On the 21st, when he teased it, it pursued his finger 

 ten inches beyond the nest, sparring with its wings, and crying like a 

 hawk. As noticed by Montagu, when fourteen days old, the restless 

 disposition ceased, and it allowed young birds to remain in the nest. It 

 was sometimes fed with snails, and worms three inches long, as if aware of 

 its voracity, for he never saw titlarks feed their own young with such 

 mouthfuls. He also certified that the cuckoo places her egg in the titlark: 's 

 nest by its bill. "On Sunday, June 24-th, 1838, when two sons of Mr 

 Tripeny, farmer in Coxmuir, were sitting in a plantation tending their 

 cattle they saw a cuckoo alight upon a hillock of moss close by. It picked 

 up an egg with its bill, and, after looking to see if any one was in sight, 

 hopped down with it amongst the heath. They ran to the place, and saw 

 it rise from the side of a titlark's nest, into which it put its head. In the 

 nest (which was arched over with strong heath, and had a narrow entrance) 

 there was a newly-dropped cuckoo's egg, along with one of the titlark's 

 own." 



I make no apology for introducing such facts from the observa- 

 tions of others, as my object in writing this little history of our 

 birds is truth, for every year there are disputes in the press 

 about the cuckoo and its eggs. In 1889 it went through the 

 papers that a cuckoo's nest was got in France that year with 

 rive eggs — the female cuckoo sitting on them — the nest built by 

 the cuckoos. Another instance was given the same year of a 

 cuckoo's nest, with three young ones, being got near St 

 Andrews. The Fife papers said — 



Cuckoo's Nest. — In a broom bush on the farm of Horselaw, near 

 Cupar, Mr Walker Robb last week found a cuckoo's nest with three eggs 

 in it. This week three young birds have been hatched, and the parent 



