228 BRITISH BIRDS. [vol.xiv. 



she suddenly gave her bubbUng call and flew off into the 

 forest. Now, although we waited until 6 p.m., she was seen 

 no more that day. On the 22nd, we found the fourth nest 

 of No. 8 pair, with two of its rightful eggs and the 19th egg 

 of the Cuckoo which had been certainly laid just before 

 one o'clock on the 20th. 



20TH Egg. 

 June 22nd. — To-day it seemed reasonable to expect that 

 the Cuckoo would deposit her egg in the fourth nest of No. 6 

 pair, although incubation had begun on the 20th, and despite 

 the fact that until 11 o'clock this morning we did not discover 

 her 19th egg. After various convincing movements during 

 the morning, she at length took up a position about 1.30 in a 

 tree overlooking the expected nest. At 2.5 she floated down 

 to the nest, the owners of it flying up to meet her. She 

 stayed on the ground beside it for thirty-one minutes, the 

 Pipits fluttering round her from time to time. On going 

 up to the nest I found four eggs of the Pipit and the 20th 

 egg of the Cuckoo. The latter was quite warm, whilst the 

 former were stone cold. It is worthy of particular note that 

 on the two occasions when the Cuckoo was observed to make 

 a long stay at the nest-side the fosterer had, in each case, 

 already begun to incubate her eggs, and these were the only 

 occasions upon which the Cuckoo deposited her egg with 

 eggs already under incubation. 



21ST Egg. 



June 24th. — To-day the Cuckoo showed us the 5th nest 

 of No. 5 pair, which contained one egg. 



June 25th. — This nest held, as it should have done, two eggs. 



June 26th. — This morning there were still only two eggs. 

 At. 2.45 the Cuckoo again flew down to the nest and left the 

 eggs undisturbed. At 6 p.m. I again visited the nest and was 

 surprised to see only one egg. 



It will be recollected that, when the 13th egg of the Cuckoo 

 was being dealt with, I said that I should give further evidence 

 in support of my opinion that a fosterer may occasionally 

 remove her own eggs. If the Pipit in this instance did not 

 take away her own egg, what happened to it ? Certainly the 

 Cuckoo did not remove it, for she was not seen on the common 

 during the time when the egg disappeared. 



The inference that can be drawn is that too much attention 

 by a Cuckoo will at least on some occasions so harass a fosterer 

 that she will show her resentment by removing an egg, or 

 eggs, of her own, and then desert. I have known Red-backed 



