CUCKOO SUCKING EGGS. 5G9 



take an egg out of the nest, alight with it on the flower-border, 

 and then, throwing up her head and apparently tossing the egg 

 well back into her throat, crush the shell and let the contents 

 trickle down. She then threw out the shell, which was picked up 

 by the observers. If this is not accepted as good testimony, I 

 would draw Mr. Davenport's notice to Mr. Sach's evidence 

 in Dresser's ' Birds of Europe ' ; and especially to the narration 

 by another correspondent of ' The Field,' H. L. W., who took 

 out of a Cuckoo's crop, near Worcester, the recognisable remains 

 of some eggs, two of which were Kobins, and the rest apparently 

 Hedge Sparrows ('The Field/ Jan. 28th, 1882). There is no 

 bird about which so much has been written as the Common 

 Cuckoo ; and yet we have not reached the end of its history by 

 a long way, as these stories show. 



Dr. Bowdler Sharpe calls the egg-sucking Cuckoo a myth 

 (' Birds of Great Britain,' vol. ii. p. 26) ; but the foregoing 

 narrative seems inexplicable in any other way, and must be held 

 to prove that, in one instance at any rate, a Cuckoo deliberately 

 ate eggs. That they remove them from the nests of their dupes 

 few will deny ; and I have fairly clear evidence that they remove 

 young nestlings as well. 



On the 20th of last May I had been listening to the cry of 

 the Spotted Crake on one of our Norfolk " broads," when three 

 old Cuckoos, one behind the other, probably a hen and two cocks, 

 flew past, and then over a small bog-myrtle bush, about two feet 

 high, which stood quite by itself on the fen. In about three 

 minutes one of these Cuckoo s returned, and, either not seeing or 

 heeding me, entered the little bush, where it remained certainly 

 more than five minutes. I approached very cautiously, but found 

 it impossible, in the long grass, to observe it even with strong 

 binoculars. 



A subsequent minute search revealed nothing in the bog- 

 myrtle, but about eight feet from the bush was an empty Yellow 

 Wagtail's nest, scattered round which, at distances varying from 

 two to six feet, were five young Wagtails, doubtless dropped where 

 they were by the Cuckoo. I take it that the object of this Cuckoo 

 was by removing the young to make the old Yellow Wagtail build 

 a new nest in which she might also deposit her egg. Probably 



Zool. 4th ser. vol. I.. December, 1897. 2 r 



