CUCKOO gi 



greenish brown, reddish or rust-coloured blotches, spots, lines, or freckles. Many 

 cuckoos' eggs are like those of the redstarts, others like those of the whinchat, 

 reed-warbler, redbreast, skylark, woodlark, and wagtails. Others resemble those 

 of the chaffinch, brambling, ortolan, yellow bunting, reed-bunting, blackcap, or 

 barred warbler ; and some are like those of the marsh-warbler and garden-warbler. 

 Some cuckoo's eggs are, however, unlike those of any other bird. 



The birds in whose nests cuckoos' eggs have been found are as different as the 

 colouring of the eggs. They include the nightingale, the redstart and blue- 

 throat, the redbreast, stonechat, whinchat, and wheatear; the rock-thrush, 

 blackbird, song-thrush, fieldfare, and ring-ousel ; the goldcrest, flrecrest, willow- 

 wren, wood-wren, garden-warbler, grasshopper-warbler, reed-warbler, sedge-warbler, 

 marsh-warbler, blackcap, chiffchaff, whitethroat, barred warbler, hedge-sparrow, 

 and Alpine accentor; the wren, the tree-creeper, the coal tit and blue-tit; the 

 skylark and woodlark ; the blue-headed, grey, and white wagtails ; the meadow, 

 tree, tawny, and water pipits; the reed, ortolan, and other buntings; the bullfinch, 

 serin, twite, greenfinch, siskin, chaffinch, brambling, and other finches ; the tree and 

 house sparrows ; the swallow, starling, jay, and magpie ; the shrikes, flycatchers, 

 green woodpecker, and little grebe ; in short, more than a hundred species of birds, 

 but these are by no means all. Among the birds in whose nests cuckoos' eggs 

 have been found, there are some in which the female takes l-efuge only in her 

 direst need, such as those of doves, rooks, finches, shrikes, flycatchers, starling, 

 rock-thrush, blackbird, song-thrush, nightingale, tree-creeper, chaffinch, sparrow, 

 swallow, green woodpecker, and little grebe. To a greater or less degree the 

 egg of the cuckoo resembles that of the foster-parents in whose nest it is 

 deposited, this being especially the case in regard to the wagtails and warblers ; and 

 it is generally supposed that the majority of cuckoos' eggs resemble those of the 

 most favoured foster-mothers. As, however, they are not always placed with 

 apparently similar eggs, the resemblance at first sight seems much greater than is 

 really the case; and when we analyse and tabulate the points of resemblance we 

 find that this opinion is not borne out by the facts. For instance, among 597 

 cuckoos' eggs 302 per cent, resembled the eggs of the foster-parents, 27'5 per cent, 

 the eggs of other birds, and only 7 '4 in a hundred had no resemblance whatever 

 to the eggs of other birds, while 35 in a hundred combined the markings of other 

 kinds of eggs. In the nests of the chiffchaff, garden-warbler, reed-warbler, and 

 sedge-warbler, cases of resemblance were numerous, and among the eggs found with 

 the redstart as many as 85 in a hundred were like those of that bird ; but out of 

 the 597 there were only 143 in a hundred — and omitting the eggs from the 

 redstart's nests, only 36 in a hundred — that closely resembled the eggs of the 

 foster-parents. 



The cuckoo is much attached to its birthplace, and most of these birds always 

 deposit their eggs in the district ; but in the wider range over which the cuckoo 

 is spread, there is sufficient space for a large number of varieties, distinguished 

 from each other by a difference in their eggs. The cuckoo, it seems, always 

 deposits her eggs, when possible, in the nest of that kind of bird to which her own 

 foster-parents belonged, and at a time before cultivation had modified wide stretches 

 of country, every cuckoo used to smuggle her eggs into the nest of one particular 



