I02 Summer Studies of Birds and Books chap. 



by the gardener before she had actually deposited her 

 egg ; and all might have gone well if a cat had not 

 strayed that way. That the Cuckoo should have 

 followed the birds into the greenhouse just at the time 

 when all was ripe for its mischief — for there were 

 then four eggs in the nest — seems to me to show that 

 it had been watching this pair of birds for some time ; 

 this the "Wagtails well knew, and, abandoning perhaps 

 their original intention, chose this unlikely place. 



I think this must also be the explanation of that 

 curious fondness of this bird for railway stations, 

 which I have noticed not only in my own parish but in 

 all parts of the kingdom. When I say that almost 

 every country station has its pair, I am not going 

 very much beyond the facts. Here at Kingham it 

 has been so ever since I began to notice birds ; the 

 familiar little double note from the station roof is so 

 well known to me that I now barely stop to notice it. 

 At one time they used to build in the crevices of the 

 stacks of coal ; this year there was a nest almost 

 under the signal-box, and just beneath the massive 

 wooden posts fixed at the end of a siding to resist the 

 force of shunted trucks. They are conspicuous birds, 

 and the Cuckoo would soon find them out if they 

 gave him a fair chance ; but the bustle of men and 

 trains perhaps deters the malignant enemy.^ 



^ I have somevvliere read of a pair that built on the axle of a 

 shv.uted railway carriage on a branch line ; when the carriage was 



