304 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



their household treasures, and judging, probably, from 

 external appearances, with shrewd suspicions as to the 

 raptorial affinities of their unwelcome guests. The 

 unvarying but grateful song of this bird is never heard to 

 more advantage than in these marshy districts, whether 

 softened by distance, it still blends with the rustling 

 reed-stems and the sedge-birds' melodies, or, startling 

 by its sudden presence, the bird flits past, uttering its 

 long drawn notes upon the wing. Still, far or near, 

 the life long summer's day appears too short to tell 

 "the vagrant cuckoo's tale," commenced with the 

 earliest dawn of day, unfinished often when the sun 

 has set and other birds have ceased their mingling 

 notes. I have heard it also, on bright moonlight nights, 

 whilst listening for the merry medley of the reed and 

 sedge-birds, utter its song at lengthened intervals, thus 

 sounding more rich and mellow in its tone, when break- 

 ing the stillness of the midnight air. 



I am sorry I can say nothing from personal observa- 

 tion on that much debated question, how does the cuckoo 

 deposit her eggs? Whether or not she follows the 

 custom of certain foreign species, who are said to lay 

 their eggs on the ground and afterwards transfer 

 them with their beaks into suitable nests ; undoubtedly 

 our cuckoo's egg is found, at times, in nests so 

 situated that its introduction by any other means 

 appears impossible. An occurrence, strongly con- 

 firmatory of this view, is thus recorded in the 

 " Zoologist" for 1851 (p. 3145), by Mr. J. O. Harper, 

 curator of the Hospital Museum in this city : " On the 

 morning of the 14th of April, I was out shooting with a 

 friend for the purpose of obtaining specimens in orni- 

 thology, and having arrived at a point of the river 

 called the Alder-carr, situated midway between Norwich 

 and Thorpe, I heard from an adjoining tree the well- 

 known note of a cuckoo, which I observed perched at a 



