g6 Romance of the Cuckoo. 



Cuckoo is the Hawfinch, recorded in The Zoologist, Vol. VI., 

 p. 279, 4th series, in which Mr. Palmer records the finding of 

 three nests iii the neighbourhood of Ludlow, which contained 

 the egg of the Cuckoo. In recording these occurrences he states 

 that for upwards of thirty years' active field-work he had 

 never previously found a Cuckoo's egg in the nest of Hawfinch. 

 In some parts of Norfolk the Reed Warbler seems to be chosen 

 very frequently as fosterer, yet Rev. J. Tuck, in The Zoologist, 

 Vol. XIII., p. 317, states thirty nests of this species had been 

 found within three years in Suffolk, but not one nest had been 

 used by the Cuckoo. About Pentland Hills the Titlark-is the 

 commonest fosterer (see The Zoologist, Vol. XI., page 13), 

 and what applies to this district, I presume, will apply to Scot- 

 land generally, and probably to the whole of Britain north of 

 Yorkshire, but of this I cannot speak with certainty. In the 

 Wandsworth district (see The Zoologist, Vol. XL, page 430) Mr. 

 White has found the eggs of the Cuckoo all in Sedge Warblers' 

 nests, and absolutely identical for four successive years (1903-6), 

 evidently the produce of one bird, from which it may be in- 

 ferred that the Cuckoo returns annually to the same locality 

 for breeding purposes. Indeed, it is only on this supposttion 

 that many peculiarities in its economy can be explained. I 

 have known of one Cuckoo in this district which returned for 

 two, if not three, years in succession. It is hardly possible 

 I could have been mistaken, as this bird's notes were so very 

 much different from the ordinary call-notes of this species. 

 In the North Finchley district the Pied Wagtail seems to be 

 the favourite dupe, the Cuckoo's egg being of the grey-blue 

 type, and it is said the Cuckoo's egg is not found in the nest 

 of any other species (see Country Queries and Notes, 1908, 

 page 175). 



Sometimes the Cuckoo la3^s its egg in the nest of its dupe 

 whose eggs have been incubated some time, and one is recorded 

 by Mr. Forrest in his ' Fauna of North Wales ' as having 

 been found by Mr. Devonport in the Isle of Arran, in the nest 

 of a Titlark, and contained only one egg of the rightful owner, 

 hard sat when the Cuckoo's egg was deposited, and Mr. Porritt 

 mentions having once found a Cuckoo's egg by itself in a 

 slight hollow on Thorne Waste which was also partly incubated. 

 Darwin, in his ' Origin of Species,' page 213, gives a similar 

 case, on the authority of Adolf Muller, and remarks : — ' This 

 rare event is probably a case of reversion to the long-lost 

 aboriginal instinct of nidification.' 



It used to be thought that the Cuckoo laid but one egg 

 in a season ; now, however, the number is variously estimated 

 from seven to nearly three times this number — perhaps ten 

 will be nearer the average in a season. 

 {To he continued). 



Naturalis: , 



