Mr. Rowley's Observations. 85 



the spot where its offspring was being reared. Mr. 

 Gurney also gives several cases where the eggs or 

 young birds of the foster-parents were ejected from 

 the nest on the very day on which the cuckoo was 

 hatched, and therefore not able to have done the 

 deed. He also cites the authority of a gardener, who, 

 hidden in a pig sty, saw the old cuckoos carry off three 

 young ones from a hedge-sparrow's nest. All this 

 goes to show that, in favourable cases, the old cuckoos 

 do the work themselves, thus assuring better feeding 

 for their young ones from the very start. But this 

 could not be invariably the case, simply because of 

 the position of certain nests into which the cuckoo's 

 eggs have been dropped, but from which it was im- 

 possible that the cuckoo could have entered far enough 

 to e.xtract even an egg for the one deposited, not to 

 speak of abstracting young, without tearing and 

 destroying the entrance of the nest ; and this especi- 

 ally applies to the domed nests of wrens, and to some 

 other nests. 



Professor Newton quotes Rowley, (Ibis 1865, p. 

 286) to the effect that traces of violence and of a 

 scuffle between the intruder and the owner of the 

 nest at the time of introducing the egg often appear, 

 whence we are led to suppose that the cuckow, or- 

 dinarily, when inserting her egg, excites the fury 

 (already stimulated by her hawk-like appearance) of 

 the owners of the nest, by turning out one or more of 

 the eggs that may be already laid therein, and thus 

 induces the dupe to brood all the more readily and 

 more strongly what is left to her.'" Mr. Rowley 

 dwells merely on turning out the eggs : if so, we 



* Dictionary 0/ Birds, i, p. I2i. 



