70 HIUTISH BIRDS. [vol. xiv. 



we are at once confronted with names which at once recall the 

 B.O.U. List of British Birds and its ill-iatcd Nomina conservanda, 

 while on the next page Mr. Nicoll reverts to the nomenclature of 

 Howard Sa mdeis in 1S99, and retains Saxicola as the generic name 

 of the Wheatcars and Pratincola for the Whinchat and Stonechat, 

 although all ornithologists of the present day are agreed that the use 

 of these names in this sense is impossible. We trust that in any future 

 work on this subject, Mr. Nicoll will discard this jumble of discordant 

 principles altogether, and adopt some intelligible system of nomenclature. 

 The illustrations consist of a series of half-tone photographs of 

 skins and the eight coloured plates recently issued in Birds Protected 

 by Law in Egypt. It would be ungracious to criticize too severely 

 illustrations to a work issued at so low a price but we fear that photo- 

 graphs of skins of small birds will never be of much use as a means of 

 identiiication. The coloured plates, though very crude, are in most 

 cases recognizable. It is indeed high time, seeing that nearly fiftv 

 years have elapsed since Shelley's work appeared, that a new list of 

 the birds of Egypt should appear, and the present Handlist, in spite 

 of certain rather irritating defects, will prove extremely useful to 

 students of distribution. We are greatly indebted to Mr. Nicoll for 

 his careful and painstaking researches into the subspecific races which 

 occur in Egypt, which must always be a country of the greatest interest, 

 not only as a meeting place of Eastern and Western forms, but also as 

 a great migration highway, and look forward at some future time to 

 the appearance of a fuller and more complete work on the birds of 

 this country. In the meantime we are glad to welcome this inexpensive 

 Handlist as an earnest of better things to come. 



F. C. R. JOURDAIN. 



LETTERS. 



OBSERVATIONS ON THE CUCKOO. 

 To the Editors of British Birds. 



Sirs, — In British Birds (XII., pp. 182-4 and XIII., pp. 90-5) I have 

 reported the taking of nine and sixteen eggs from the same Cuckoo 

 {Cuculus c. canorus) in the seasons 1918 and 1919 respectively. 



It is now my pleasure to inform you that I am compiling from notes 

 made at the time a detailed record of a third season's study of the 

 same Cuckoo, which if desired shall be submitted to you as soon as 

 completed. 



The following gives some idea of the results achieved. 



This year the same Cuckoo returned to the locality and eclipsed all 

 known records, British and otherwise I believe, by laying no less than 

 twenty-one eggs. The whole of the eggs are, of course, alike and are 

 indistinguishable from the twenty-five taken in 1918 and I9i9- I 

 have personally taken over 100 Cuckoo's eggs and have examined 

 many hundreds more, but have yet to see one which could really be 

 confused with the forty-six eggs I now possess from this one bird. 



Laying her first egg on Thursday, May 13th, she deposited one 

 regularly every alternate afternoon until on Saturday, June 12th, in 

 the presence of P. B. Smyth, of London, O. R. Owen, of Knighton, and 



