292 MR. E. C. STUART BAKER ON 



I may be permitted briefly to refer to the method adopted by 

 Cuckoos for placing their eggs in the nests of other birds. 

 Mr, Chance has proved that sometimes at least, C. canorus lays 

 her eggs direct into the nests of Pipits, whilst Mr. Scobey has 

 almost equally well proved that she does not always do so in the 

 nests of Wagtails but deposits them therein with her bill. 



Now in India, Hierococcyx sparveroides could certainly never get 

 inside a nest of Arachnothera magna, not only because it is too 

 small, but the shape of the nest prevents it. On the only occasion 

 on which I have personally taken an egg of this Cuckoo from this 

 bird's nest and also seen the Cuckoo at it, all the latter did was 

 to cling desperately for a second or so to the outside of the nest, 

 or to the stalk of the leaf beside it, whilst the parent Spider- 

 Hunters ineffectively hustled her. Certainly, I cannot say I saw 

 her place the egg inside the nest with her bill but, equally 

 certainly, she did not get inside it, yet the egg was there when 

 I arrived. Again, I have' seen, and others have seen, Clamator 

 jacohinus deposit her egg in the nest of Argya with her bill, 

 though it is probable that both C. jacohinus and C. coromandus 

 do, not infrequently, lay direct into the nests of these genera. 



Cuculus c. hakeri lays the great majority of her eggs in the 

 nests of Cisticola and Suya, both genera which build tiny egg- 

 shaped nests of grass far too small to contain the Cuckoo chick 

 when half grown, much less large enough to allow a Cuckoo to 

 sit in them. I have seen very many hundreds of these little 

 birds' nests with Cuckoos' eggs in them and it was obvious from 

 their perfect condition that no attempt had been made by the 

 Cuckoo to get inside them. When the young Cuckoo hatches 

 and commences to grow, the grass-work of the nests expands so 

 as to form a trellis-work round it until finally it bursts and the 

 young Cuckoo either falls to the ground or remains perched 

 on a pad of broken-down nest. But Cuckoos' eggs have been 

 taken from nests even more impossible of access than these grass 

 nests. Thus Mr. J. Livesey and Capt. Bates found a Cuckoo's 

 egg in the nest of a Phylloscopus built in a hole in a ti"ee, the 

 entrance to which was only big enough for the tiny warblers to 

 go in and out. The nest was some way in and the Cuckoo's egg 

 'n rolling in had smashed one of the eggs of the owner in falling. 

 Twice I have taken eggs of Cuculus c. bakeri from hollow bam- 

 boos in which an Ahrornis had built its nest and in neither of 

 these cases could the old Cuckoo have got more than its head 

 into the hole, whilst the young Cuckoo, if hatched, could certainly 

 never have got out. Col. R. H. Rattray found an egg of G. c. 

 telephonus in Danga Gali, near Murree, placed in the nest of 

 Acanthopneuste occipitalis. This nest was in amongst the roots of 

 a tree and the Cuckoo had had a desperate struggle to get even 

 its head to the nest, losing m&njneck feathers in its final struggle 

 to overcome the last inch or two. Messrs. Inglis & Primrose 

 took several eggs of Ghalcococcyx from the nests of jEthopyga 

 seherice and in no case were any of these tiny fragile nests 



