COMMON CUCKOO. 197 



country ; but the nests in which the Cuckoo's eggs are 

 most frequently found, are those of the Hedge Warbler, 

 the Pied Wagtail, and the Meadow Pipit ; these nests 

 being rather numerous, and not very difficult to find. Two 

 eggs of the Cuckoo have been occasionally found in one 

 nest ; but it is the prevailing opinion that the second egg 

 is deposited by a second Cuckoo, and that one Cuckoo does 

 not go a second time to the same nest to lay an egg. Mr. 

 Hoy, Mr. Salmon, and other good observers, bear testi- 

 mony to the fact of the adult Cuckoo occasionally destroy- 

 ing one or more of the eggs of the nest in which she de- 

 posits her own. But the young Cuckoo when hatched is 

 almost always found alone in the nest, without any eggs 

 or young birds, whatever may happen to be the nest in 

 which it has been hatched, the foster parent birds also 

 attending to its wants with the greatest assiduity ; and in 

 order to ascertain the cause of this apparent preference to 

 the exclusion of their own offspring, Dr. Jenner, at the 

 request of John Hunter, made a series of observations and 

 experiments to illustrate the natural history of the Cuckoo, 

 the details of which were published in the Transactions of 

 the Royal Society for the year 1788. The results of Dr. 

 Jenner's observations may be briefly stated as follows : 



The small birds in the nests of which the Cuckoo's egg 

 is most frequently found, take four or five days in laying 

 their eggs. During this time, generally after one or two 

 eggs have been laid, the Cuckoo contrives to deposit her 

 egg, leaving the future care of it to the owner of the nest. 

 When the bird has sat her usual time, and disengaged the 

 young Cuckoo and some of her own offspring from the 

 shell, the young Cuckoo being commonly hatched first, her 

 own young ones, and any of her eggs that remain un- 

 hatched, are soon turned out, the young Cuckoo remaining 

 possessor of the nest, and the sole object of her care. 



