1146 The Zoologist— April, 1868. 



fresh in the minds of my readers when the cuckoos arrive in April, 

 and offer opportunities in May of testing the accuracy of Heir Bal- 

 damus' theory. Not, however, that such a question is to be settled in 

 a day : it must, if it is to be fairly sifted, be tried by the concurrence 

 of many investigators in various localities, and it can only be satis- 

 factorily disposed of by the collection of a great many separate facts. 

 For my own part, I am on the point of starting for the South, in order 

 to avoid the cold winds of spring, as is my very frequent custom at 

 this season ; and before this paper is in the hands of my readers 

 I hope to be in Portugal, whence I shall not return till the early part 

 of June. I cannot therefore expect to be of much assistance per- 

 sonally in examining the eggs of the cuckoo this spring ; but before 

 I leave England I beg with all my heart to commend their very careful 

 examination to my brother ornithologists at home, and I trust that 

 when I return I shall find the pages of the 'Zoologist' well filled 



with information on the subject. 



Alfbed Charles Smith. 



Yatesbury Rectory, Calne, 

 March 5, 1868. 



Fresh Contributions to the History of the Propagation of the 

 European Cuckoo (Cuculus canorus). By E. Baldamus. 



There stands before me, in a small cabinet with many little com- 

 partments, a small collection of eggs. All around the work-table are 

 lying almost as many similar eggs in small and large boxes. The 

 half-instructed man would believe the whole to be a collection of 

 a variety of songsters' eggs. I call up a lad who knows pretty well 

 how to distinguish birds' eggs of the commoner sorts. " That is a lark's 

 egg," he says ; " that a garden warbler's {Sylvia hortensis), and this a 

 wheatear's (Sa.cicola cenanthe)." 



And if the matter had not been so positively ascertained ; if 

 Mr. Braune, the forester of Greiz, had not cut this large willow 

 wren's [S. hippolais) egg (as it seems) out of the ovary of the cuckoo, 

 which was killed as she was ftying out of the willow wren's nest; if 

 Count Rodern, of Breslau, was not a reliable authority, that this 

 apparent redstart's egg was taken out of the nest of the redstart 

 {Ruticilla phcenicurus) ; if Mr. Habicht had not taken this large tree 

 pipit's egg out of the nest of a tree pipit {An thus arboreus) ; if I myself 

 had not taken out of the nests of the redbacked shrike {Lanius collurio) 

 this reddish and this green grayish peculiarly marked cuckoo's egg ; 



