llO Australasian Ornithologists' Union. [ ist jan 



Cuckoos. — A valuable paper was then read by Mr. A. H. E. 

 Mattingley, C.M.Z.S., &c., on "Cuckoos." "It has been con- 

 tended," he said, " that Cuckoos select suitable foster-parents, 

 and with diabolical cunning place their eggs in nests of other 

 birds whose eggs harmonize in colour with those laid by the 

 Cuckoo. The statistical data obtained by me, the careful com- 

 parison of which has taken me several months to prepare, shows 

 that these haphazard statements have no foundation whatever in 

 fact. Only an infinitesimal percentage of Cuckoo eggs closely 

 approximate the colour, shape, markings, and size of those of 

 their foster-parents. Then, again, instances are fairly numerous in 

 which the Cuckoo, an insectivorous bird, places its eggs in the 

 nests of graminivorous birds, with the result that the young Cuckoos, 

 after being hatched out, invariably die for want of proper nourish- 

 ment, due to the lack of insect food, so necessary in their rearing, 

 and which is not supplied them by their grain-eating foster- 

 parents. The placing of their eggs in the nests of graminivorous 

 birds by Cuckoos shows that their so-called instinct is either at 

 fault or non-present. Then, again, we have Cuckoos placing their 

 eggs in the nests of other birds already containing Cuckoos' eggs. 

 Had the Cuckoo the knowledge, instinctive or otherwise, of the 

 habit possessed by its young ones of ejecting any other occupant of 

 the nest, be it eggs or young foster-brethren, it would most assuredly 

 have placed its eggs in the nest of some other bird devoid of eggs 

 of the Cuckoo tribe, so as to enable its offspring to survive. Then, 

 again, the size of the bird and the colour of plumage of the foster- 

 parents selected is in most cases disproportionate. The type of 

 nest, too, selected by the same species of Cuckoo varies con- 

 siderably. Most of the Cuckoos also place their eggs in nests that 

 are much too small for their offspring when it has grown to a size 

 ready to fly away. The comfort of their offspring is apparently not 

 considered by Cuckoos. In not a single authentic case have I been 

 able to trace the peculiar habits that Cuckoos possess of foisting 

 the incubation of their eggs on to other species of birds, as well as 

 the feeding and rearing of their young afterwards, to an instinctive 

 habit. We are led to believe that instincts, so-called, are 

 never-erring, but with the Cuckoos their methods are hap- 

 hazard and full of error, hence one cannot attribute the peculiarities 

 surrounding the nidification of Cuckoos as due to never-erring 

 instincts. The mass of statistical data in my paper will once and 

 for all time, I hope, settle the vexed question, generally accepted by 

 casual observers, that Cuckoos select the nests of foster-parents in 

 which to place their eggs that lay similar eggs to their own — that 

 is, so far as Australian Cuckoos are concerned." 



Mr. A. J. Campbell tabled an important collection of bird-skins 

 from Western x^ustralia, sent for exhibit by Mr. Henry L. White, 

 of Scone, N.S.W. They aroused considerable interest. It was 

 suggested that the skins be compared with type specimens at the 

 Museum next day. (Further particulars, see page 165.) 



Dr. W. V. Angove also exhibited some skins from the interior of 



