Blue Cuckoos' Eggs. 95 



other was white, with a single small dark spot upon 

 it. As they lay in the nest, I thought they were 

 rather a motley group. On another occasion I found 

 a meadow-pipit's nest, containing six of its own eggs 

 and one of the cuckoo. My limited experience would 

 point to the fact that cuckoo's eggs are less variable 

 than many other species as to colour and marking, 

 U7iless indeed their colour is so variable that they are 

 often confounded with the species amongst which they 

 are laid,-'' for, as a birds' -nesting schoolboy, I was 

 often surprised at the abundance of the cuckoos com- 

 pared with the number of their eggs found in a 

 season ; and provided each female lays more than one 

 egg, which, I believe, is the case, the proportion 

 seems still greater, as the birds always appeared to 

 be ten to one against the eggs. Probably an unskilful 

 way of finding the egg is the chief cause of such 

 apparent disparity, but I have noticed that the parent 

 cuckoo generally loiters about the spot where her egg 

 is deposited, unless she has a circuit — spots in which 

 she visits at intervals — and thus becomes a kind of 

 overseer of her scattered brood. I never found more 

 than one cuckoo's egg in the same nest, nor is it often 

 that nests containing a cuckoo's egg are placed very 

 near to each other. 



" Why do we often see small birds mobbing a 

 cuckoo ? Is it love or fear that prompts the per- 

 formance, as these smaller birds in like manner tease 

 rooks and hawks ? That the cuckoo introduces her 



* A thing rendered probable by Mr. Corbin's never having 

 met with a blue cuckoo's egg. It does, indeed, require a quick 

 eye to detect it among those of the hedge-sparrow, as, not 

 seldom, they differ only a little in size. 



