94 Further Facts and some Results. 



ornithologists like Mr. Hancock and Mr. R. P. Harper, 

 there is some ground for thinking that the youn;.^ 

 cuckoos when they take the wing are sometimes fed 

 by the old ones. Whether each young one is recog- 

 nised by its own true parents, or whether the atten- 

 tion is merely one of kind to kind is a question on 

 which at present no decisive judgment can be given, 

 as there is really no data to justify such a decision one 

 way or another. 



A very keen discussion on the habits of the cuckoo 

 took place in the Zoologist for 1873, in the course of 

 which Mr. G. B. Corbin wrote : 



" As a lover and student of the feathered tribes, I 

 may be allowed to offer my small item of experience 

 with regard to the above question. The two nests in 

 which I have most frequently found a cuckoo's egg 

 are the hedge-sparrow and meadow-pipit, more com- 

 monly the latter. I have at different times taken 

 scores of nests of the red-backed shrike, but on no 

 occasion have I found a cuckoo's egg in them ; neither 

 have I ever seen a cuckoo's egg bearing the least 

 approach to the blue of the eggs of the hedge-sparrow 

 and redstart. 



" Some two or three seasons ago I noticed that 

 whenever I passed along a particular hedge-bank in 

 the meadows, a cuckoo was always to be seen some- 

 where in its vicinity, so I concluded that an egg had 

 been deposited not far off. I searched the herbage 

 very closely, and at last found what had been so 

 attractive to this summer-loving bird, viz., a nest of 

 the blackheaded-bunting, containing a cuckoo's egg 

 and five of the rightful owner's. Four of the bunting's 

 eggs were of the usual colour and markings, but the 



