271 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



SAME CUCKOO TWICE MAKING USE OF SAME NEST. 

 I AM sorry that Mr. Butterfield considers my assertion too sweeping. I 

 have been collecting cuckoos' eggs for over fifty years and have examined 

 772 sets (a fair number having two eggs of cuckoo in same set), and in no 

 instance where there were two eggs had the eggs been laid by the same bird, 

 nor had I ever heard of a case until the one mentioned by Mr. Butterfield. 

 I have many series of clutches of the same variety, each containing a 

 cuckoo's egg, obviously laid by the same bird, and taken at short intervals 

 within a small radius, and it strikes one as singular why the cuckoo should 

 trouble to find six, seven, or eight separate nests, when she could easily 

 return to one that she had already adopted. I take it that instinct tells 

 her there would be no room for two young in the same nest. The most 

 interesting series I have is that of four nests of Garden Warbler — two 

 nests containing two eggs each of cuckoo, and two one egg each, the pro- 

 duct of two birds ; No. i nest one small egg. No. 2 nest one small egg and 

 one large egg. No. 3 nest one small egg and one large egg, and No. 4 nest 

 one large egg, three eggs of each. I should be glad if Mr. Butterfield would 

 give us the weight of the two eggs he mentions. 



Herbert Massey, Ivy Lea, Burnage, Didsbury, June 21st, 1918. 



THE LATE G. KNOTT. 



I REGRET to have to record the death of Mr. G. Knott, of Heckmondwike, 

 on March 14th. Mr. Knott has left a valuable collection of Palseo- 

 botanical structure blocks and microscopic sections. These have been 

 handed over to me for investigation and disposal in order to provide some 

 funds for his widow, who is left in rather straightened circumstances. 

 I have opened a fund, with the approval and assistance of Dr. Scott, 

 F.R.S., and several other friends, to meet the case. The collection he 

 has left has taken many years to get together and is of great value to 

 science, embodying some of the rarest and most valuable structure plants 

 known. Mr. Knott discovered Sigillaria elegans. This was followed 

 by 5. mamillaris and 5. scutellata, all figured and described by Dr. Kidston, 

 F.R.S. Later still he discovered a second example of S. elegans — this the 

 finest example of a structural sigillaria yet known to science, is as yet 

 uninvestigated. It shows a complete cylinder of outer corte.x with the 

 characteristic leaf bases — portions of inner cortex crowded with outgoing 

 leaf and cone traces, and in the centre the beautiful arrangement of primary 

 and secondary zylem zones, the cells themselves throughout being in a 

 unique state of perfection, hitting off the specific name ' elegans ' divinely. 

 Mr. Knott got no pecuniary assistance during his life, and as his valuable 

 work has been placed at the service of science, I beg to appeal to interested 

 friends for financial aid for his widow. Contributions should be sent to 

 my address and made payable to me for the Mrs. Knott Fund. 



W. Hemingway, i Seale Street, Chester Green, Derby. 



An illustrated article on Rat-Trapping appears in The Journal of the 

 Board of Agriculture for March. 



Report No. 66 of the Marlborough College Natural History Society 

 contains 56 numbered (mostly wrongly) pages, and 28 un-numbered. 

 The society has had a successful year and we must say the notes and 

 observations have been carefully and thoroughly drawn up. They appear 

 under various headings ; attention is drawn to remarkable and unusual 

 occurrences and note made of additions to the local lists. Besides the 

 usual headings we notice the Diptera are dealt with and there are 

 meteorological and anthropometrical reports. 



1918 Aug 1, 



