THE CUCKOO IN THE PIPIT'S NEST. 



" Several well-known naturalists who have seen my sketch from life of 

 the young Cuckoo ejecting the young Pipit (opposite page 22 of the little 

 versified tale of which I send a copy)"* have expressed a wish that the details 

 of my observations of the scene should be published. I therefore send you 

 the facts, though the sketch itself seems to me to be the only important 

 addition I have made to the admirably accurate description given by Dr 

 Jenner in his letter to John Hunter, which is printed in the Philosophical 

 Transactions for 1788 (vol. Ixxviii., pp. 225, 226), and which I have read 

 with pleasure since putting down my own notes. 



"The nest which we watched last June, after finding the Cuckoo's egg 

 in it, was that of the Common Meadow Pipit (Titlark, Mosscheeper), and had 

 two Pipit's eggs besides that of the Cuckoo. It was below a heather bush, 

 on the declivity of a low abrupt bank on a Highland hillside in Moidart. 



" At one visit the Pipits were found to be hatched, but not the Cuckoo. 

 At the next visit, which was after an interval of forty-eight hours, we found 

 the young Cuckoo alone in the nest, and both the young Pipits lying down 

 the bank, about ten inches from the margin of the nest, but quite lively 

 after being warmed in the hand. They were replaced in the nest beside the 

 Cuckoo, which struggled about till it got its back under one of them, when it 

 climbed backwards directly up the open side of the nest, and hitched the 

 Pipit from its back on to the edge. It then stood quite upright on its legs, 

 which were straddled wide apart, with the claws firmly fixed half-way down 

 the inside of the nest among the interlacing fibres of which the nest was 

 woven, and, stretching its wings apart and backwards, it elbowed the Pipit 

 fairly over the margin so far that its struggles took it down the bank instead 

 of back into the nest. 



"After this the Cuckoo stood a minute or two, feeling back with its 

 wings, as if to make sure that the Pipit was fairly overboard, and then sub- 

 sided into the bottom of the nest. 



" As it was getting late, and the Cuckoo did not immediately set to 

 work on the other nestling, I replaced the ejected one and went home. On 

 returning next day, both nestlings were found, dead and cold, out of the 

 nest. I replaced one of them, but the Cuckoo made no effort to get under 

 and eject it, but settled itself contentedly on the top of it. All this, I find, 

 accords accurately with Jenner's description of what he saw. But what 



* The Pipits, illustrated by Mrs Hugh Blackburn (Glasgow : Maclehose, 1872). 



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