232 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



by my friend Dr. Giovanni Gulia, this specimen was taken at Gozo 

 in the hmits of Kercem. Dr. Gulia examined it in the flesh before it 

 ■was sent for stuffing to the late Mr. Micallef of Birchircara by its 

 owner, Mr. A. Saliba, of Gozo. — G. Despott (Malta). 



White Storks (Ciconia alba, Bechst.) in Malta. — Some White 

 Storks passed over the island during the morning of May 10th, two 

 of which were shot in the vicinity of Birzebbuggia. My brothers, 

 who were at the time in that locality, reported to me the occurrence, 

 saying that they saw the birds coming over from the south-west, and 

 that one of the birds, which they had ample time to examine in the 

 flesh, was an immature specimen. The White Stork being a very 

 rare straggler to these islands, I think its occurrence is quite worth 

 recording. Schembri, in his ' Cat. Orn. del Gruppo di Malta,' says 

 that the species is rather rare, and that he saw a specimen for the 

 first time in Malta in April, 1840. Wright, in his ' List of the Birds 

 of Malta,' says that the species is rare and does not occur annually; 

 he also mentions three specimens, one of which was shot on March 

 22nd, 1857, and the other two on May 4th and 7th, 1863 ; these last 

 two, he says, were sent to him by Capt. Carr, E.A. I have never 

 seen the species in Malta, either alive or in the flesh ; I know, how- 

 ever, of two stuffed specimens, one of which was in the possession of 

 Mr. L. Naudi, Pharmaceutical Chemist at Eabato, the other is in the 

 Malta Natural History Museum, though this bears no data ; from the 

 style of its mounting, I am inclined to think it is one of the speci- 

 mens which were in the collection of Wright. — G. Despott (Malta). 



Notes on the Laying of the Cuckoo. — An interesting occurrence 

 of the laying of the Cuckoo, and one that without the complete facts 

 would have further supported Mr. E. P. Butterfield's instances of the 

 Cuckoo laying in an empty nest (' Zool.,' p. 153) recently came under 

 my observation. Whilst I was staying at a farm at Turvey, in Bedford- 

 shire, on May 7th last, some of the children of the farm-hands robbed a 

 nest of a Hedge- Sparrow of its three eggs at 2 p.m. The laying of these 

 had taken place on the consecutive mornings previously. At 6 p.m. 

 these children had the curiosity to visit the nest again, and then found 

 the egg of a Cuckoo had subsequently been deposited in the empty nest. 

 The conclusions I draw are that the Cuckoo had located this nest 

 when it contained eggs, and on bringing its own to deposit therein 

 had practically no alternative but to leave it there, whether to be 

 eventually removed it is now impossible to say. Instances such as 

 this may be frequent, and do not affect the point of my query (see 



