Miss Cockburns Evidence. 215 



And, thirdly, that in India — as there are, indeed, 

 some grounds for beheving was once the case with 

 our common cuckoos — certain of the cuckoos there 

 pierce the eggs in nests which do not suit them, and 

 suck out their contents ; all which has an illustrative 

 bearing, more or less direct, on our own cuckoos and 

 their habits in certain ways. Fourthly, that in India, 

 Ciiculiis canorus — which remains there for full six 

 months — affords yet further proof that pressure of 

 time, due to migration, cannot be, as Mr. Darwin and 

 Mr. Romanes have said, the one sufficing motive to the 

 parasitism it practises ; and, fifthly, that some para- 

 sitic Indian cuckoos do not throw out the young of 

 foster-parents, and others have at least two broods a 

 year — the second eggs being laid before all the first 

 brood are fiown. 



Here are some cases under the first head : 



I. Miss Cockburn, for long, finding no eggs that 

 she could identify as those of the Indian plain cuckoo 

 {Caconiantis passevinus), thought that it did not breed 

 in the Nilghri Hills. But, at last, she had the fullest 

 and most satisfactory evidence that it did, — its Qgg, 

 however, being such an exact imitation of the com- 

 mon wren warbler, that it was not at all recognised. 

 Miss Cockburn's statement causes Mr. Adams to say : 



" Miss Cockburn's interesting note on the breeding 

 of this species fully explains what I thought at the 

 time to be a case of fraud on the part of some of our 

 native fellow-subjects. Towards the end of Sep- 

 tember, 1866, when in Lucknow, I had small boys 

 collecting nests for me, and on two occasions nests of 

 Prinia inornata were brought to me, containing an 

 Qgg like that of Prinia inornata, but slightly larger ; 



