222 BRITISH BIRDS. [vol. xiv. 



8th Egg. 

 Found on May 27th at 5.45 p.m. alone in the third nest of 

 No. 4 pair. At 8 a.m. the nest had contained one Pipit's egg. 



9TH Egg. 



Found on May 31st at 4.30 p.m. in the second nest, with 

 two eggs of No. 7 pair. This egg had undoubtedly been 

 deposited two days previously in exchange for the then single 

 egg of the Pipit. 



lOTH Egg. 



Found on May 31st at 3.55 p.m. in the second nest, with two 

 eggs of No. 6 pair. At 10 a.m. the nest contained three eggs 

 of the Pipit. The Cuckoo had been seen to fly down to this 

 nest on the 29th. 



iiTH Egg. 



Although we had so far not seen the Cuckoo actually 

 deposit her egg we had narrowly missed doing so on more 

 than one occasion. By this date, June 2nd, the accumulated 

 •experiences gained over the period in which the first ten eggs 

 had been laid — a period, so to speak, of pioneer work in 

 which I had been afforded the invaluable assistance of Q. R. 

 Owen, of Knighton, my college friend, T. W. Helme, of 

 Lancaster, Mrs. Newton, of Edgbaston, and the two Simmonds, 

 father and son, who live on the confines of the common- — 

 pointed, in a manner convincing to me, to the extreme likeli- 

 hood of the Cuckoo to-day depositing her egg in the third nest 

 of No. 9 pair whence she had been seen to fly on May 30th, 

 when it contained one egg of the Pipit. Accordingly I 

 invited a friend, Mrs. Brown, to come and witness the expected 

 performance. There were at this date two other possible 

 nests available but I had every confidence in the correctness 

 of my forecast, so at 10.30 a.m. we took up a position about 

 150 yards from the nest. Nothing much happened until 

 at about i o'clock there were at least three Cuckoos playing 

 about in an orchard in the middle of the common. At 2 p.m. 

 what proved to be the female Cuckoo left the others and flew 

 to an oak tree in the forest which commanded a perfect view 

 of the nest. She remained motionless until 2.35 when, with 

 an unusual and gliding action, she flew, accompanied by the 

 Pipits down to the site of the nest and back again. In the 

 next ten minutes she repeated the performance four times. 

 On the last occasion she seemed momentarily to settle beside 

 the nest before flying right away across the forest. Then I 

 looked at the nest and found the four eggs untouched. 



Soon after 3.15 the Cuckoo came back into the same oak 



