The Zoologist— March, 1808. 1109 



The cuckoo then, houseless and vagabond though she is, and the 

 veritable "gipsy of the feathered tribes," as she has been styled, soon 

 alter her arrival here in the spring, begins to busy herself no less than 

 other birds, in making preparations for her future progeny ; but instead 

 of preparing a nest as other birds do, her occupation is to scour the 

 hedgerows and plantations, and watch the busy nest-makers with more 

 eager eye than any schoolboy;* observing day by day the progress 

 made, and anxiously selecting those which may be most convenient 

 for her purpose. Into these nests it is not her habit to intrude herself 

 for the purpose of laving her egg, as all other birds do; indeed, from 

 her superior size in proportion to the nest, such a course would be 

 generally impossible ; but she lays her egg on the ground, and then 

 she lakes it in her beak,t and gently deposits it in the nest she has 

 chosen. And that the cuckoo does thus avail itself of her beak to 

 place her eggs in nests which otherwise would have been inaccessible 

 to her, is not only a priori established from those cases where no other 

 means were possible, as in certain domed nests witli entrance-holes at 

 the side only, or those which are laid in the holes of trees, as for 

 instance those of the wren, the redstart and others; but we have a 

 very interesting account, from a charcoal burner in the Forest of 

 Thiiringer, who happened to be in his rude woodman's hut in the 

 forest when a cuckoo (which"j.he had long observed flying about in the 

 neighbourhood) flew into the hut, not perceiving the owner, perched 

 upon a bench near the entrance, laid an egg, then seized it in her beak 

 and placed it in a wren's nest, which was built against the inner side 

 of the hut, while the man looked on in amazement, and soon after 

 related the ''wonder" to the German naturalist who recorded the 

 event. But I believe this to be her invariable method, whether the 

 small nest of the foster-parent be accessible to her or no : and then, 

 again, this habit of taking the egg in her beak, and so depositing it in 

 the chosen nest, considered in conjunction with the similarity of her 

 egg to that of several species of small birds as detailed farther on, will 

 readily account for the frequent assertion on the part of eye-witnesses 

 of the cuckoo eating the eggs of small birds, which they triumphantly 

 declare they have themselves seen between the mandibles of that bird's 

 beak. + 



* Rennie's ' Architecture of Birds,' p. 374. 



t ' Zoologist,' 3145, 7/57, 7935, 8165. Hewitson's ' Eggs of British Birds,' vol. i. 

 p. 205. Teiuminck's ' Manual d'Oinilhulogie,' vol. i. p. 384. BenmVs ' Architecture 

 of Birds,' p. 378. 



% ' Naturalist ' foi 1851, p. 162 ; for 1852, pp. 33, 233. 



