474 THE CUCKOO 



of its wings, as if to be convinced whether the business was properly 

 executed, and then dropped into the nest again." He afterwards put 

 in an egg, and this was also thrown out. Subsequently he repeated 

 the experiment several times in different nests. His statements have 

 in recent times been verified by Mrs. Hugh Blackburn l and others, 

 and in 1899 the evidence was completed by the excellent photos 

 published in the Feathered World (July 14) by Mr. John Craig and 

 Mr. J. Peat Millar, of which two are reproduced on Plate xxxvii. 



The stages in the ejection are, generally speaking, as follows : 

 (1) the nestling cuckoo manages to get the egg or bird on to its 

 back, where it is kept in position by the featherless arms, and partly 

 by the fact that in the middle of the back there is a curious hollow, of 

 which more later. 



(2) It climbs backward up the side of the nest, legs well apart, 

 and head down, as shown in Mr. J. Peat Millar's photograph 

 (Plate xxxvii.). Then, standing partly in the nest or actually on its 

 edge, it pitches its burden off with a jerk. If the nest is deep it may 

 only be able to hoist the object on to the edge. 2 Sometimes it fails 

 completely, and the victim or egg rolls back into the nest, to be 

 once more lifted up, and perhaps again to roll back before eviction 

 takes place. 3 It will perform the act of eviction three times in 

 succession in one minute, if the victim is put back in the nest. 4 

 Its success or failure no doubt depends upon its age and 

 strength, and its inherited physical fitness. It depends also on the 

 shape, depth, and position of the nest. To eject something from the 

 deep nest of a reed-warbler or the domed nest of a wren would, for 



1 Birds ofMoidnrt, 1895. 



* For an example see Zoologist, 1905, 164 (J. H. Gurney). 



8 See, for instance, Hancock's account in the Transactions of the Northumberland and 

 Durham Natural History Society, 1886, viii. 210, 217 ; and W. H. Hudson, Hampshire Days, p. 19. 

 An instance is recorded in which a two-day-old nestling fantailed-cuckoo of Australia (Caco- 

 mantis flabelliformis), after hoisting a nestling scrub- wren on to the edge of the entrance of the 

 nest, reared itself still further, at the same time straining its head in the other direction to 

 preserve its balance, then placed its arms outside the nest, and so, with a final heave, in which 

 the " Pope's nose" played the most important part, ejected the victim clear of the nest (Emu 

 1907, 120, A. G. Campbell). 



4 Link, op. cit., p. 95, quoting observations of Walter, Friederich, and Mitller. 



