52 Life History of Common Cuckoo. 



incubates and hatches one or more of its own eggs, 

 which, in these cases it apparently lays together in a 

 safe place on the ground, without preparing any nest. 



2. That the eggs of the same cuckoo may be very 

 different in colour and markings. If this be so, the 

 purely theoretical idea held in certain quarters, that 

 each hen cuckoo lays eggs of the same colour and 

 markings, and of " one beautiful type," which are 

 destined to be laid in the nests of one particular 

 species of small bird, and are rarely the same colour 

 as those of the foster-mother, and that she only lays 

 them in the nest of this species, falls to the ground. 



I am perfectly aware that certain ornithologists 

 and ornithological societies were well inclined to dis- 

 credit Muller and to reject his report ; but, taking his 

 observations in connection with those of Dr. Erasmus 

 Darwin and Mr. Wilmot, and, more recently, obser- 

 vations as reported, I think, in the Field of a case on 

 Wimbledon Common and some observations of my 

 own, I am not so certain that there may not be some- 

 thing in Herr Miiller's report. Certain of the ornitho- 

 logists who rejected Muller were the very men who 

 had obstinately insisted for years and years that 

 cuckoos never laid blue eggs ; and some of them, to 

 save their amour propre, would fain deny them still. 



There is also the case of Herr Kiessel and three 

 other eye-witnesses who reported that in the end of 

 May, 1868, a cuckoo reared her young in a wood near 

 St. Johann. Kiessel observed the bird regularly and 

 saw that both the eggs were hatched and the little 

 birds reared with tenderness and care, and the whole 

 story was told and verified in the German Garten- 

 latibe. 



