94 Further Facts and some Results, 



ornithologists like Mr. Hancock and Mr. R. P. Harper, 

 there is some ground for thinking that the young 

 cuckoos when they take the wing are sometimes fed 

 by the old ones. Whether each young one is recog- 

 nised by its own true parents, or whether the atten- 

 tion is merely one of kind to kind is a question on 

 which at present no decisive judgment can be given, 

 as there is really no data to justify such a decision one 

 way or another. 



A very keen discussion on the habits of the cuckoo 

 took place in the Zoologist for 1873, in the course of 

 which Mr. G. B. Corbin wrote : 



" As a lover and student of the feathered tribes, I 

 may be allowed to offer my small item of experience 

 with regard to the above question. The two nests in 

 which I have most frequently found a cuckoo's egg 

 are the hedge-sparrow and meadow-pipit, more com- 

 monly the latter. I have at different times taken 

 scores of nests of the red-backed shrike, but on no 

 occasion have I found a cuckoo's egg in them ; neither 

 have I ever seen a cuckoo's egg bearing the least 

 approach to the blue of the eggs of the hedge-sparrow 

 and redstart. 



" Some two or three seasons ago I noticed that 

 whenever I passed along a particular hedge-bank in 

 the meadows, a cuckoo was always to be seen some- 

 where in its vicinity, so I concluded that an egg had 

 been deposited not far off. I searched the herbage 

 very closely, and at last found what had been so 

 attractive to this summer-loving bird, viz., a nest of 

 the blackheaded-bunting, containing a cuckoo's egg 

 and five of the rightful owner's. Four of the bunting's 

 eggs were of the usual colour and markings, but the 



