Mr. Macllwraith's Facts. 225 



usually build a nest and bring up a family, but even 

 to them the duty does not seem to be a congenial 

 one, and they are sometimes known to slip an egg 

 into each other's nests, or into that of a different 

 species. The nest they build is of the most tem- 

 porary character, and the eggs are deposited in such 

 a desultory manner that it is no uncommon thing to 

 find fresh eggs and young birds in it at the same 

 time.* . . . Last summer a pair had their nest and 

 reared their young within fifty feet of my residence. 

 They were very seldom seen near the nest except 

 when sitting on it. The nest was very flimsy, placed 

 near the end of a horizontal branch of a maple about 

 eight feet from the ground." 



Mr. Macllwraith notes that the eggs vary from 

 four to eight or nine, t 



This is a very large margin in the laying. My 

 theory of it is that the bird usually produces as many 

 eggs, but, beyond four, places them always, when it 

 can, in the nests of other birds. Sometimes, however, 

 it will happen that it cannot find such nests ready for 

 it, then it puts them into its own nest, but only then, 

 thus laying on themselves the burden of having young 

 throughout a very long season — young ones and fresh- 

 laid eggs being in the nest together. 



Mr. Macllwraith has also this significant passage : 



" In the report of the Ornithological subsection of 



* " The nest of the yellow-billed cuckoo is a very flimsy 

 structure of about twenty straws crossed, and so poorly put 

 together that after a high wind eggs of both this bird and the 

 mourning dove are frequently found on the ground in pieces: 

 that of the black-billed cuckoo is only one shade better." — 

 William Lloyd on " Birds of Texas " in the Auk, 1887, p. igo. 



tp- 240 (edition, 1894). 



Q 



