Hunter s Dissections. 6i 



cuckoo to the position of the gizzard ; which is placed 

 further back on the abdomen, and is less protected by 

 the sternum than in other birds. But all these points 

 are efficiently met by the results of the dissections of 

 Hunter, already referred to at p. 42. 



With regard to the theory that the same female in- 

 variably lays eggs of one colour, the observations of 

 Herr Adolf Miiller, communicated to Westermann's 

 Monatshefte, raised difficulties. 



On the i6th of May, 1888, Herr Adolf Miiller was 

 crossing a wood, when a cuckoo started from almost 

 under his feet. He examined the ground carefully, 

 and discovered beneath a tussock of grass, in a little 

 hollow, three eggs. The first was light yellow with 

 brown spots, the second orange with greenish 

 lines, the third, smaller than the others, was of a 

 greenish grey with minute red spots and blotches of 

 reddish brown. Herr Miiller, with true German pa- 

 tience, came every day, and, by the aid of an opera 

 glass, observed, without disturbing her, the habits of 

 the extraordinary bird, which chance had revealed to 

 him. She proceeded to sit with irreproachable regu- 

 larity. In ten days a young one was hatched. The 

 mother abandoned the two sterile eggs and devoted 

 herself to the little cuckoo, whom she sheltered under 

 her wings in the keen morning air, and supplied with 

 caterpillars from a neighbouring oak copse. In three 

 weeks it could fly ; whereas under the care of foster 

 parents young cuckoos do not master that accom- 

 pHshment until after the lapse of six or seven weeks. 



Herr Adolf Miiller draws from these observations 

 the following results : Ibis 1889, p. 219. 



I. That the cuckoo, in exceptional circumstances, 



