276 Cuculidce. 



same size, fluttering away from her marbled eggs at the root of 

 an old oak, or some other bird, has been mistaken for the Cuckoo, 

 which never, in any single instance, has been known to sit on her 

 own eggs. 



The Cuckoo then, houseless and vagabond though she is, and the 

 veritable 'gipsy of the feathered tribes,' as she has been styled, 

 soon after her arrival here in the spring, begins to busy herself no 

 less than other birds in making preparations for her future 

 progeny ; but instead of preparing a nest, as other birds do, her 

 occupation is to scour the hedgerows and plantations, and watch 

 the busy nestmakers with more eager eye than any schoolboy ;* 

 observing day by day the progress made, and anxiously selecting 

 those which may be most convenient for her purpose. Into these 

 nests it is not her habit to intrude herself for the purpose of lay- 

 ing her egg, as all other birds do ; indeed, from her superior size 

 in proportion to the nest, such a course would be generally im- 

 possible : but she lays her egg on the ground, and then she takes 

 it in her beak,f and gently deposits it in the nest she has chosen. 

 And that the Cuckoo does thus avail herself of her beak to place 

 her eggs in nests which otherwise would have been inaccessible to 

 her, is not only d priori established from those cases where no 

 other means were possible, as in certain domed nests with entrance 

 holes at the side only, or those which are laid in the holes of trees, 

 as for instance those of the wren, the redstart and others ; but we 

 have a very interesting account from a charcoal-burner, in the 

 forest of Thuringer, who happened to be in his rude woodman's 

 hut in the forest, when a Cuckoo (which he had long observed fly- 

 ing about in the neighbourhood) flew into the hut, not perceiving 

 the owner, perched upon a bench near the entrance, laid an egg, 

 then seized it in her beak, and placed it in a wren's nest which 

 was built against the inner side of the hut, while the man looked 

 on in amazement, and soon after related the ' wonder' to the 



Rennie's Architecture of Birds,' p. 374. 



f Zoologist, 3145, 7757, 7935, 8165. Hewitson's ' Eggs of British Birds,' 

 vol. i., p. 205. Temminck's ' Manual d'Ornithologie,' vol. i., p. 384. Rennie's 

 ' Architecture of Birds,' p. 378. 



