WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 161 



have left an egg had not she been shot by a person 

 who wanted a cuckoo to stuff. 



It is difficult to understand upon what principle the 

 cuckoo selected a nest thus placed. The ordinary 

 considerations put forward as guiding birds and ani- 

 mals in their actions quite fail. Instinct would scarcely 

 choose a spot so close to a house actually on it ; the 

 desire of safety would not lead to it either, nor the 

 idea of concealment. She might, no doubt, have 

 found nests enough at a distance from houses, and 

 much more likely to escape observation. Was there 

 any kind of feeling that this particular wagtail was 

 more likely to take care of the offspring than others ? 



I doubt the cuckoo's alleged total indifference to 

 her young. They certainly linger in the neighbour- 

 hood of the nests which they have selected to deposit 

 their eggs in. On another occasion a cuckoo used a 

 wagtail's nest in a different part of the garden here 

 in some ivy that had grown round the decaying stump 

 of an old fir tree. This bird was watched, but not inter- 

 fered with ; she came repeatedly, and was seen on the 

 nest, and the egg observed. Afterwards a cuckoo sang 

 continuously day after day on an ash tree close to the 

 garden. 



Lower down in the ivy, behind the logs of timber 

 under the casement, the hedge-sparrow builds every 

 year ; and on the wood itself where the trunks formed 

 a little recess was a robin's nest. The hedge-sparrow, 

 unlike his noisy namesake, is one of the quietest of 

 birds : he slips about in the hedges and bushes all 

 6 



