LI. YOUNG CUCKOO AND MEADOW PIPIT. 



THIS plate is from an actual example of a Meadow Pipit's nest 

 on the ground, among heather and ferns, which was occupied by 

 a young Cuckoo. The deluded little bird was also observed 

 taking food to her precious foster-child, as represented. 



When I met Mr Harting of the Linnean Society in London 

 this spring (1895), he told me he had just had sent for his in- 

 spection, on its way to the bird-stuffer's, a young Cuckoo in its 

 first plumage, recently shot by a gamekeeper, who had mistaken it 

 for a female Kestrel. In a paper he has since written in the 

 Zoologist, July 1895, Mr Harting says : " On dissection this bird 

 proved to be a female, but with no marked development of the 

 ovaries. This peculiar phase of plumage in the Cuckoo has been 

 long known and described by several Continental writers, but 

 is of such infrequent occurrence in England as to deserve some 

 notice when met with." 



THE MEADOW PIPIT (Anthus prcetensis) is very common here. 

 It frequents heathery ground, and is called in Scotland the " Moss 

 Cheeper." Gamekeepers find it troublesome in attracting the 

 attention of young dogs, who sometimes stop and point it instead 

 of following after grouse. It is a dull-coloured little bird, with 

 a feeble song which it makes the most of by fluttering up on 

 high like the Skylark ; and when it has chirped its little halle- 

 lujah, it slowly descends on outstretched wings to its nest again. 

 It is most interesting when looked upon as " baby-farmer " to the 

 Cuckoo, in which compulsory vocation it displays an unwearied 

 and disinterested tenderness, worthy of imitation by the feather- 

 Ill 



