THE ZooLocist—JULyY, 1875. 4539 
them down as kestrels. As I approached nearer, however, I found they 
were not kestrels, but cuckoos, and after watching them some time the 
party dispersed, one this way and another that, and there could be no 
possible mistake about the matter, as two of them passed over my head, 
and, settling on a tree at no great distance, gave utterance to their well- 
known note. Iam quite at a loss to account for this congregation in the 
sunshine. Has it been observed before, and if so, what is the purpose of 
it? Is it possible these were newly-arrived individuals reconnoitring their 
future abode? or do they thus meet in the air and pair? I first heard the 
notes of the bird on the 20th of April, and the wryneck, which is said to 
be its predecessor, on the 15th, so that these could not have been the first 
arrivals; besides their behaviour was very different from what we should 
have expected from birds just arrived. Some few years ago I recollect 
seeing some six or seven cuckoos, about the middle of April, settled in a 
meadow, not in a flock, but scattered over the field, all resting on the ground, 
as if weary: these, I supposed, had just come to us from abroad, but their 
attitude and movements were very different from those of the frolicsome 
party I saw a few days since. What led me to remark this more closely is 
that I have always understood, both from my friends as well as my own 
scanty powers of observation, that the cuckoo is, like the robin, of a very 
unsociable nature and disposition. I certainly had never seen more than a 
pair congregated before, and indeed I had almost dubbed it a “feathered 
anchorite.” Does the cuckoo always elevate and spread its tail when it 
utters its well-known notes? I have been very near to the bird once or 
twice, and, as a rule, it seemed to do so whenever it sang—in fact, the 
frame of the bird seemed agitated during the whole performance, for, of 
course, it is well known that, besides “‘ cuckoo,” it has a harsh unmusical 
twitter which it sometimes gives vent to. The newspapers report that the 
cuckoo was heard this season at the end of March. I must own to a certain 
amount of scepticism on the point, especially as this season has been so un- 
usually cold and unfavourable to birds which love summer weather. For 
the past nine years I have noted the arrival of our summer visitors, and 
the earliest date I ever heard the cuckoo was the 14th of April, 1869. It 
generally arrives here between the 14th and 20th.—G@. B. Corbin. 
Stock Dove in a Magpie’s Nest.—On the morning of the 10th of June 
I went to visit a magpie’s nest, expecting to find a hawk had taken up its 
abode in it. Having nearly reached the nest, which was built high up in 
a tree, a stock dove suddenly flew out: the bird flew away slowly, and 
seemed to look back as she was flying, as though loth to leave. The uest 
T found to contain two eggs of the stock dove. This is the second instance 
I have known of this species incubating in a magpie’s nest, and in both 
cases the nests were those of the year. I have never seen it stated that 
the stock dove builds in the nests of other birds: I have generally 
