128 Poachers and Poaching. 



been found in the nests of sixty different species, 

 several of which are exceedingly small, and 

 moreover domed. Among the sixty nests 

 patronised were the unlikely ones of the butcher- 

 bird, jay, and magpie all either bird or egg 

 destroyers. This may seem to reflect on the 

 cuckoo's stupidity ; and the bird certainly exhibits 

 deplorable ignorance of the fitness of things 

 when it deposits its egg in the nest of the 

 diminutive goldcrest or the cumbersome one of 

 the cushat. A goldcrest might conveniently be 

 stowed away in the gape of a young cuckoo 

 without the latter detecting that the morsel was 

 much more than a normal supply. The nests in 

 which the eggs of cuckoos are most frequently 

 found are those of the meadow-pipit, hedge- 

 sparrow, and reed-warbler. Now the eggs of 

 these birds vary to a very considerable degree ; 

 and the question arises whether the cuckoo has 

 the power of assimilating the colour of its egg to 

 those among which it is to be deposited. Certain 

 eminent continental ornithologists claim that this 

 is so, but facts observed in England hardly bear 

 out the conclusion. Brown eggs have been 

 found among the blue ones of the hedge- 

 sparrow, redstart, wheatear ; among the green 

 and grey ones of other birds ; and the purely 

 white ones of the wood-pigeon and turtle-dove. 

 The cuckoo's egg is brown,, and it must be 

 admitted that the great majority of the nests 



