ADDITIONAL CUCKOO NOTES. 879 



and then sets to work to grow fat at their expense. In a week he 

 fills the nest and in three he has destroyed all its shape and symmetry 

 and sits encased in a sort of basket-work of grass, and as he distends 

 more and more he eventually bursts the walls altogether and rests on a 

 pad of grass attached to the surrounding blades. I have had two young 

 Cuckoos brought in to me about three quarters grown in the remains 

 of such nests and they looked, as 1 have already said, as if they had 

 had baskets plaited over them. How such tiny birds as the Fantaii 

 Warbler and allied species can rear such a voracious giant, seems in- 

 credible, but I must say that both the youngsters brought in to me were 

 extremely fat, speaking volumes for the energy and devotion of their 

 little fosterers. 



The Pipits' nests undoubtedly rank next in demand, and must be very 

 great favourites, as neither rufulus nor striolatus are very common 

 here; yet of the fourteen nests of the latter and six of the former, 

 which I have taken this year, no less than 18 have had Cuckoos' eggs 

 in them. 



Both Austen's Hill Warbler (Suya khasiana) and the Brown Hill 

 Warbler (S. crinigera) are extremely common in the Khasia Hills, 

 perhaps even more so than the Rufous Fantaii Warbler ( Cisticola 

 cursitans), but though I must have seen some 250 nests of the Suyas, 

 there have been Cuckoos' eggs in only 9 of them against 20 in the 

 Cisticolas' nests. 



This is very curious, as the nests are much of the same kind, i.e. small 

 grass purses, and I should have thought that the Fantaii Warbler was 

 the better concealed of the two. 



Other birds' nests seem only to be taken as a pis aller when the 

 favourite ones are not available. 



Both Niltava sundara and Stoparola melanops are quite common 

 birds and one would have thought them very suitable fosterers, yet one 

 egg in a nest of the former is all we have found. 



The result of this year's work has in one respect confirmed what was 

 said in my previous article to the effect that we must take it for granted 

 that the Cuckoo lays its eggs on the ground and then places it in the 

 nest selected for its reception. In no case have I found a nest in any 

 way damaged by the Cuckoo, and often the only way it was possible 

 for the egg to have been deposited in the nest without considerably 

 spoiling it would have been in this manner. 



