358 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



selves. When rearing up his last Cuckoo, a hen bird, he had occasion, 

 whilst cleaning out some cages, to put a nest of live naked nestlings just 

 outside the Cuckoo's cage. The bird at once appeared in a great state of 

 agitation, trying to peck at the nestlings between the wires. Her owner, 

 unable to see the meaning of this, tested the Cuckoo by giving her a 

 nestling, with the result that she munched its head, its neck, and so on, 

 until she reached the claws, when she again took it by its head and 

 swallowed the whole nestling, head foremost, with the legs last vanishing. 

 The same performance is regularly carried out with any small nestling, 

 dead or alive. This Cuckoo, like others of past days, is fond of raw meat, 

 and this though Cuckoos as a family are insectivorous. It is an observed 

 fact that the Cuckoo often haunts the neighbourhood of a nest containing 

 one of its own young, whilst often the nestlings of the builders of the nest 

 once there are no longer even to be found dead ; and, again, in nests con- 

 taining a Cuckoo's egg, the other eggs have been found sucked and 

 destroyed, leaving the Cuckoo's intact, and the old Cuckoo has been seen 

 flying away. Can it be possible that the Cuckoo sometimes destroys 

 nestlings that hustle its own young, by eating the former, or is the trait 

 above recorded merely a strange development analogous to the devouring by 

 hens of their own chickens in captivity, or to the drinking of port by a tame 

 Rook until it is no longer capable of judging on the rookery bench? — 

 W. L. Mellersh (The Gryphons, Cheltenham). 



Hedgesparrow breeding on the Bass Rock.— In the last number 

 (p. 304) Mr. Meiklejohn reports his having found a nest of the Hedge- 

 sparrow with four eggs on the Bass Rock on May lGth, and surmises that 

 such a case was previously unrecorded. I may refer him to my paper on 

 "The Isle of May, its Faunal Position and Bird Life," being the Presi- 

 dent's Address to the Royal Phyl. Society of Edinb., session cxvi. p. 323, 

 under " Hedgesparrow," which species bred there in 1884. From your 

 correspondent's description of the locality of the nest, I would not be 

 surprised to learn it was the same pair of birds he fouud in 1896 — a low 

 face of rock close to and above the old buildings and enclosure. — J. A. 

 Harvie Brown (Dunipace, Larbert, N. B.). 



Iceland Gull in Co. Sligo. — In my note on this subject (p. 305) there 

 is a mistake in the date of my finding the Iceland Gull. I picked it up 

 on June 5th — not April 5th. The fact of its being found in June was the 

 reason I sent you the note, for though it is rare in adult plumage in this 

 country, I don't think I should have troubled you with the record of it if 

 I had obtained it in the winter. But as Mr. Cordeaux observed one in the 

 Humber district " as late as April 18th," I thought it well to report that 

 I had got one in June. It could not have been shot many days, for the 

 weather then was very hot here. — Charles Langham (Tempo Manor, 

 Co. Fermanagh). 



