Cuckoos' Eggs 163 



Pipit-duping Cuckoos in these parts, and adjusting the 

 burthen of foster-mothership somewhat more equitably ! 

 Out on the moors, as is only natural, the Meadow Pipit 

 becomes almost the sole Cuckoo-hatcher. The nest next 

 most often victimised on the railway sides was certainly that 

 of the Whinchat (the next most individually abundant 

 species after the Tree Pipit). I found several Cuckoos* 

 eggs in these nests, one in a Yellow-hammer's, and one in 

 that of a Robin ; but, except the latter, all the eggs much 

 resembled one another, and were of the common meadow- 

 pipit type. The exception was a perfect copy of a pale- 

 coloured robin's egg, being irregularly blotched with the 

 usual reddish markings on a dingy white ground. Of the 

 Chats' nests victimised, one was placed quite a foot into a 

 sort of rabbit-hole in a low peaty bank, overhung by a large 

 tuft of Air a Csespitosa ; just the kind of situation in which 

 one would least have expected to find a Cuckoo's egg, and 

 where a nest ought to have been safe from robbery. There 

 were, moreover, two other Whinchats' nests within a radius 

 of five or ten yards of it, as well as a Tree Pipit's, all 

 normally situated, all containing eggs at the time, and all 

 apparently so much more likely to attract a Cuckoo's notice. 

 The circumstance was sufficient to suggest the idea that it 

 might have been the unusual means taken to conceal the 

 nest that had exited the Cuckoo's admiration, and induced 

 her patronage ; but if so, her extreme caution was destined 

 to go for nothing ; for like so many other well-laid schemes 

 that gang sae aft a-gley, the nest in the hole mysteriously 

 disappeared, together with its contents, a few days after the 

 Chat had begun to sit ; while from at least two of those near 

 by, though far more exposed, young were successfully reared. 

 Cuckoos in Merionethshire were repeatedly heard 

 doubling the first note of their call, right through the 

 spring months, from the time of their first arrival, making 

 the song " cuc-cuc-koo," " two kookes to one koo," as the 

 old rhyme has it. This I have often had opportunities of 

 noticing elsewhere, and long ago came to the conclusion 

 that the double note is commonly made use of by the 

 Cuckoo whenever the sexes happen to be in close proximity 



