VOL. VII.] NOTES. 233 



not see any of them make any attempt to find food for them- 

 selves, except by keeping a close eye on the other birds, 

 and vieing with one another as to who should receive it ; 

 and the Pipits looked just like one of those little roving bands 

 one so commonly sees at this time of the year. We saw 

 several of such bands during the afternoon, and it was 

 especially remarked that not one of those birds attendant 

 upon the Cuckoos seemed to take more than a casual interest 

 in them. No Pipit showed anything of that alarm when 

 we approached a Cuckoo that " mother " Pipits generalty do; 

 I really very much doubt whether any of them had actually 

 brought up a Cuckoo, or any one of them, and obviously no 

 Pipit could have brought up more than one, though, as above 

 stated, one Pipit was seen to feed more than one Cuckoo. 

 Then the Thrushes and Eobin could hardly have any 

 connexion witli them, and a Cuckoo eating worms is unusual ! 

 What it was that the Robin and the Pipits brought we 

 could not see as I had no glasses. Once the food brought 

 by a Pipit appeared to be a Crane-fly." 



Wliile upon the subject, I might add, with reference to 

 one of the last observations, that I have since that date 

 had proof that adult Cuckoos will, occasionally at any rate, 

 feed upon worms. In Country Life of May 17th, 1913, I 

 described how, on two occasions during very inclement 

 weather that month, I watched old Cuckoos catching and 

 swallowing worms. " George Bolam. 



[Mr. Bolam's observation is very interesting, but it seems 

 to us quite possible that the three Cuckoos were hatched 

 in three Meadow-Pipits' nests within a restricted area, and 

 after fledging kept together. The evidence against the 

 Pipits being the real fosterers seems to us w^eak, but the 

 occasional feeding of the Cuckoos by Robins and Thrushes, 

 in any case, confirms a good many previous observa- 

 tions which show that other birds will occasionally assist a 

 fosterer in its task. Durham Weir informed Macgillivray 

 that he saw a Meadow-Pipit feed a young Cuckoo with 

 snails and mouthfuls of large worms, some of which were 

 more than three inches in length. {Hist, of Br. Birds, III., 

 p. 130),— Eds.] 



CUCKOOS' EGGS AND NESTLINGS IN 1913. 



The following notes are based on observations made, with 

 two or three exceptions, in the neighbourhood of Felsted, 

 Essex. Altogether twenty-nine eggs or young Cuckoos 

 (Cuculus c. canorus) were met with in the course of the 



