BIRDS IN THE CALENDAR 
into erroneous conclusions. Yet, of the two, it 
certainly seems more reasonable to regard 
the smaller birds as resenting the parasitic 
habit in the cuckoo than to admit that they 
can actually welcome the murder of their own 
offspring to make room in the nest for the 
ugly changeling foisted on them by this 
fly-by-night. 
On the lucus a non lucendo principle, the 
cuckoo is chiefly interesting as a parent. The 
bare fact is that our British kind builds no 
nest of its own, but puts its eggs out to hatch, 
choosing for the purpose the nests of numer- 
ous small birds which it knows to be suitable. 
Further investigation of the habits of this 
not very secretive bird, shows that she first 
lays her egg on the ground and then carries 
it in her bill to a neighbouring nest. Whether 
she first chooses the nest and then lays the 
egg destined to be hatched in it, or whether 
she lays each egg when so moved and then 
hunts about for a home for it, has never been 
ascertained. The former method seems the 
more practical of the two. On the other hand, 
little nests of the right sort are so plentiful in 
May that, with her mother-instinct to guide 
60 
