' THE CUCKOO. 229 



commences to sit upon them — for example, the 

 Sparrow-Hawk, Blackbird, Missel-Thrush, Car- 

 rion Crow, Stone Curlew, or Black-headed Gull. 

 Who has not found nests of any or all of these 

 in which one egg, and sometimes more, differed 

 entirely from the rest ? And yet in each instance 

 these were laid, as we may presume, not only by 

 the same hen, but by the same hen under the 

 same conditions, which can be seldom, if ever, the 

 case with a Cuckoo. 



Looking to the many instances in which eggs 

 laid by the same bird, in the same nest, and 

 under the same circumstances, vary inter se, it is 

 not reasonable to suppose that eggs of the same 

 Cuckoo deposited in different nests, under dif- 

 ferent circumstances, and, presumably, different 

 conditions of the ovary, would resemble each 

 other. On the contrary, there is reason to expect 

 they would be dissimilar. Further, I can con- 

 firm the statement of Mr. Dawson Rowley, who 

 says :' " I have found two types of Cuckoo's eggs, 

 laid, as I am nearly sure, by the same bird." 



1 " Ibis," 1865, p. 183. 



