On a Cuckoo Hatching its own Eggs. 219 



discovered a single cave where digging either was, or would 

 have been, of the slightest use. 



My stay was now drawing to a close, and leaving the 

 northern range on the 19th ]May, I rode over the vast level 

 plain of the Mesorca to Famagusta, Avhere I had left most of 

 my belongings. Ten hours of such a journey and under such 

 a sun is most wearisome, and there was little in my sur- 

 roundings to enliven it. Now and again a Thickaee got up 

 under myhorse's feet and stole cautiously away,but no Bustard 

 arose to rouse one from the state of Cypriote-like apathy 

 which such rides induce. I reached my destination at night- 

 fall, and next day went down to the lake, which, as I expected, 

 showed a different scene to that I had witnessed on the 

 occasion of my last visit. , Birds were abundant. The two 

 beautiful Terns, HydrocheUdon nigra and H. leucoptera, per- 

 formed their graceful evolutions in all directions, and Snipes, 

 both Common and Great, were not uncommon in the reeds. 

 My friend procured the Ruff in full plumage, and we also 

 obtained the Bittern, Little Bittern, Stilt, Dunlin, and other 

 Sandpipers, besides Mallard and Shoveller. I stayed a few 

 days to complete my scries of skins and to pack up, and then 

 rode in to Larnaka, where my second tour in Cyprus — on the 

 whole a good deal to my regret — came to its conclusion. I 

 watched the island, burnt and barren,yet somehow not without 

 its own peculiar beauty, fading gradually from my sight one 

 evening in early June, and nexi morning I woke, and lo! there 

 lay before me the smiling greenery of Latakia. 



XVIII. — On an Instance of a Cuckoo Hatching its own Eggs. 

 By Oberforster Adolf Muller"^. 



On the morning of the 16th of May, 1888, when I was looking 

 over a young plantation in my district of the Royal forest 



* [A free translation of an article in tlie 'Gartenlaube,' vol. xxxvi. 

 No. 25, 1888), which, I think, will interest British ornithologists, containing 

 the fii'st authentic record of such an occurrence. I am told, on the best 

 authority, that Herr Adolf Miiller is an excellent observer, and may be 

 thoroughly relied upon. — Ed.] 



