276 TEE ZOOLOGIST. 



beltaue the treis salbe forfaetit to the King" (Parliament of Perth, 

 1424-5). — Ernest Blair (4, Thorney Terrace, South Shields). 



The Cuckoo and its Eggs. — One evening late in May I saw a dead 

 bird lying in the weeds in a meadow-dyke, which proved to be an 

 unlucky Cuckoo recently shot by some ignorant keeper or prowling 

 gunner. I brought it home and mounted it, and, as we happened to 

 have two unblown Cuckoo's eggs in the house, an opportunity was 

 afforded for experimenting with the egg and the bird's beak, which 

 opened widely enough to hold the egg easily with the smaller end 

 downwards, but not sufficiently to allow of its passage into the throat. 

 The effect was rather like that of an egg in an egg-cup. The Cuckoo 

 was a year-old cock, and of course I am unable to say whether the 

 hen-bird has a wider gape. So far as one can judge from the Cuckoo's 

 eggs laid in East Anglia, their resemblance to the eggs of the foster- 

 parents seems to be a matter of pure accident. On more than one 

 occasion I have taken eggs of a pronounced Eeed-Warbler type from 

 nests of the Sedge- Warbler, and the only egg I ever found in a Reed- 

 Warbler's nest is a reddish-tinted one. Another egg in a Cuckoo- 

 Reed- Warbler clutch saved for me two seasons ago from a Norfolk fen 

 is of the Pied-Wagtail type. It would be easy from our collection 

 here to " make to order " some very good examples of assimilation, 

 and perhaps there are few things to which the principle of caveat emptor 

 or caveat mutator could better apply than to the purchase or exchange 

 of Cuckoo clutches. — Julian Gr. Tuck (Tostock Rectory, Bury St. 

 Edmunds). 



Three Cuckoos' Eggs in one Nest. — On June 23rd a nest of the 

 Meadow-Pipit was handed to me containing three Cuckoos' eggs and 

 no others. I have not the least reason to doubt the statement of the 

 man who took it, and if further proof of the genuineness of this curious 

 clutch were needed, it seems to be supplied by the facts that all the 

 three eggs were quite fresh, and evidently laid by three different 

 Cuckoos. Two of the eggs are the same as those in a clutch of two 

 Cuckoo's eggs with four of the Meadow-Pipit, which I took myself in 

 the same locality about ten days previously. About the middle of 

 June a photograph was reproduced in ' Country Life,' illustrating a 

 nest of the Hedge- Sparrow, which contained three Cuckoo's eggs and 

 four of the owner's. If the process of incubation had been successfully 

 gone through in either case, the question of " the survival of the 

 fittest" would have been an interesting one. — Julian G. Tuck (Tostock 

 Rectory, Bury St. Edmunds). 



