Mr. BidwelVs Results. 69 



Mr. Bidwell has found the egg of the cuckoo in the 

 nest of the reed-warbler twenty-two or twenty-three 

 feet from the ground, and I have found it at even a 

 greater height in that of the jay and wood-pigeon. 

 Nor is this, according to Mr. Bidwell's view, any 

 accidental or occasional case, since he holds that 

 cuckoos which lay eggs in nests high in trees come 

 of a class which always do so — a point in which I for 

 one am inclined to agree with him. These nests are 

 so removed from the examination of the ordinary boy 

 bird-nester that he is little likely to exaniine carefully 

 or exhaustively all such nests in a given area. In 

 this fact alone we have a suggestion of a much wider 

 deposition of cuckoos' eggs than is usually conceived 

 — and this the more especially — and it needs to be 

 emphasized here if, as Mr. Bidwell holds, those cuc- 

 koos which deposit their eggs in such lofty nests will 

 always choose such nests if they are to be found 

 within their beat. 



In the Zoologist for 1883 (pp. 372-3), Mr. Bidwell 

 contributed a very interesting note, telling how, in a 

 certain small area near his house at Richmond, he 

 had found, in different nests of the reed-warbler, four 

 cuckoo's eggs so alike in their markings that no 

 ornithologist could doubt they were laid by the same 

 bird ; and he drew certain inferences from his facts : 

 (i) that the cuckoo does not always turn out one of 

 the victim's eggs for her egg ; (2) that a cuckoo will 

 always use, if she can find it, the same class of nest 

 to lay her egg in ; and (3) that the cuckoo does not 

 wander far if she can find fitting nests to put her 

 eggs in ; and (4) that cuckoos that lay in high nests 

 will always prefer high nests, as in this case each 



