3528 The Zoologist — May, 1873. 



water and securing a small cyprinoid, will emerge from the stream, uttering 

 its shrill cacophonous scream, as if rejoicing over the delicate morsel it had 

 captured, and not scolding at its ill-success, as has been thought ; for we have 

 frequently shot them as they rose from the water, and invariably found a 

 fish, still alive, in the stomach or CESophagus. Indeed, I cannot see how 

 this characteristic cry of the kingfisher could be accomphshed with a fish 

 struggling in its beak. When the fish, from its size or other cause, is 

 retained in the oesophagus until the bird alights, the movements of the 

 bird, to effect the swallowing, are very similar to those of a pigeon while 

 feeding her young. The neck shortens and swells ; the feathers are ruffled 

 and the wings slightly open and shut two or three times. So far as my 

 observations of the Ceryle Alcyon extend, Mr. Darwin's remarks will not 

 apply to that kingfisher. — Chas. C. Abbott ; Trenton, New Jersey, Jan. 14. — 

 'Nature,' March 13. 



Cuckoo's Eggs. — The views of Dr. Baldamus on this subject were made 

 known to the British public in ' Chambers' Edinburgh Journal,' No. 208, for 

 December, 1857 : this fact was mentioned by an anonymous critic in ' The 

 Academy,' vol. i. p. 105. I have not the 'Journal' at hand, but Professor 

 Newton has corroborated the statement. — E. Newman. 



Cuckoo's Eggs. — I am surprised that no one has asked the rather per- 

 tinent question, " If the cuckoo is able to assimilate its egg so closely to the 

 eggs of the bird it selects as the foster-pareut of its young, how can any one 

 point out which is the cuckoo "s egg in the nest ? " For my part, I do not 

 believe that these so-called cuckoo's eggs which so closely resemble the 

 eggs of sedge warblers, black redstarts, redbacked shrikes, &c., are cuckoo's 

 eggs at all ; for, as far as my experience goes, there is hardly any bird's 

 egg whic/i varies so little as the egg of the cuckoo, and in my birdnesting 

 days I have seen a good number of bond fide cuckoo's eggs, and since then 

 in the collections of various friends, and all these eggs possessed the same 

 character of colouring, &c., which, as Mr. Henry Doubleday well says, makes 

 the egg of the cuckoo well known even to the village urchin. — Murray A. 

 Mathew ; Bishoj/s Lydeard, April 2, 1873. 



Eggs of the Cuckoo. — As a lover of the feathered tribes, I may be allowed 

 to oft'er my very small item of experience with regard to the above question, 

 about which my more leained brethren have had more than one discussion ; 

 60 it is with some degree of diffidence I offer my scanty observations. The 

 two nests in which 1 have most frequently found a cuckoo's egg are the 

 hedgesparrow and meadow pipit, more commonly the latter. I have at 

 different times taken scores of nests of the redbacked shrike, but on no 

 occasion have I found a cuckoo's egg in them ; neither have I ever seen a 

 cuckoo's egg bearing the least approach to the blue of the eggs of the hedge- 

 sparrow and redstart. Some two or three seasons ago I noticed that when- 

 ever I passed along a particular hedge-bank in the meadows a cuckoo was 



