198 BRITISH BIRDS. 



his full song only by degrees. I have met with it early in 

 April in the plains, when in the spring passage, and heard 

 the ludicrous attempts to produce the call result, for the 

 first two hours at any rate, in nothing more than a croak- 

 ing sound ! The full call is, however, acquired in a day 

 or two, but is very feeble : probably the full compass is 

 not attained till the breeding grounds are reached, that 

 is to say, when the bird has become sexually ripe. 



As regards the eggs of the Cuckoo in India I can say 

 but little from personal observation. But in the summer 

 of 1907, when in the Thandiani-Hazara district, at an 

 elevation of 9,000 feet, I found three blue Cuckoos' eggs 

 in nests of the Dark Grey Bush-Chat {Oreicola ferrea) 

 and the Indian Blue-Chat (Larvivora brunnea), and as 

 Cuculus canorus was the only Cuckoo, to m}^ knowledge, 

 frequenting the vicinity of these nests, I could only 

 attribute the eggs to this species. In order to make sure, 

 however, I shot a female Cuckoo, and with great luck 

 took from the oviduct fragments of shell (the egg having 

 been broken) of a beautiful pure blue, which taUied with 

 the egg found in the nest of Larvivora brunnea. The eggs 

 of this bird, it may be remarked, were of a delicate, 

 spotless, blue colour, while those of the Dark Grey Bush- 

 Chat were spotted with a few tiny specks of darker 

 greenish-blue. But the eggs of this last species present 

 some variation, showing different shades of pale bluish- 

 green, speckled more or less densely with chestnut and 

 pale rufous. 



