BUie Cuckoos' Eggs. 67 



Henry Seebohm and Mr. H. J. Elwes, who were col- 

 lecting together in Holland, and who received a nest 

 of redstart's eggs, one of which, larger than the rest, 

 was said to be that of a cuckoo. The eggs proved to 

 be hard set with well formed young inside. They 

 were alike blue in colour, but in trying to blow the 

 larger egg, the foot of the little bird, a zygodactyle 

 foot, protruded from the whole, and effectually proved 

 that the tiny occupant was a veritable cuckoo. ""^^ 



And Dr. Bowdler Sharpe tells of the experience of 

 his friend, Mr. C. Bygrave Wharton, who discovered 

 a nest of the sedge warbler, with cuckoo's eggs in it, 

 only distinguished from the true eggs by being larger ; 

 and some days afterwards he found an egg precisely 

 this same sedge-warbler type in the nest of a reed- 

 bunting, whose eggs are very different. This seemed 

 to show that the egg laid by the cuckoo was like that 

 of the sedge-warbler, and that on the first occasion 

 the cuckoo had found the matching nest ready to 

 hand, but, in the case of the second egg, no sedge 

 warbler in the neighbourhood had been found with a 

 nest ready, and so the cuckoo was forced to put it 

 into the nest of the reed-bunting. 



But, unfortunately, as we think. Dr. Bowdler 

 Sharpe does not press forward certain facts that would 

 have still further strengthened his position here. On 

 another page we find him saying : 



" In none of the hedge-sparrows' nests have we a 

 blue cuckoo's egg, and it is curious to find an egg like 

 that of a skylark or a tree-pipit deposited in the nest 



* " The zygodactyle foot," as said already, simply means that 

 the bird has two toes to the front and two to the back— a point 

 in which but a limited group of birds any way resemble it. 



