62 OBSERVATIONS ON THE CUCKOO. 
eggs in the nests of other birds as soon as those 
birds begin to lay—not unfrequently, indeed, imme- 
diately after the exclusion of the first egg; and Mr. 
Baker informs me that he saw the hen of that pair 
of Cuckoos which he observed so closely last spring 
fly directly to a Titlark’s nest as to a place with 
which she was perfectly familiar, though he had never 
seen her there before; and after raising her head and 
looking round, as if to ascertain whether she was 
noticed or not; she went and deposited her egg in the 
nest before the Larks had begun to lay. From these 
circumstances, and from the direct evidence of my 
own senses, I consider this fact, then, as satisfactorily 
established ; and it is of importance, inasmuch as it 
completely obviates a difficulty which has greatly per- 
plexed modern ornithologists, and which chiefly in- 
duced Colonel Montagu to form his extraordinary but 
gratuitous opinion respecting the power of the Cuckoo 
to retain its egg till it meets with a nest im a suitable 
state to receive it. 
Though Dr. Jenner enumerates a variety of small 
birds in whose nests Cuckoos deposit their eggs, yet 
he remarks that in Gloucestershire they give a decided 
preference to that of the Hedge-Warbler. In the 
neighbourhood of Manchester, where Titlarks are 
numerous, their nests are usually selected for that 
purpose, and perhaps would be so very generally 
were they equally abundant in all situations, as, from 
being built on the ground, they are much more 
