THE BEHAVIOUR OF A NESTLING CUCKOO. 31 



ordinary effort, it throws its victim from its back, after which 

 operation it remains flapping its wings for several seconds, as if 

 to make assurance doubly sure that the process of ejectment has 

 been successful, and then lowers itself and plunges itself into the 

 nest. 



In the act of hoisting its victim to the top of the nest the 

 Cuckoo is a most fiendish-looking object ; its head, at the end of 

 an extraordinary long neck, is hanging down the side of the nest, 

 of a livid colour, and " didders and dodders " in a most remark- 

 able fashion, and the whole frame seems in a very tense condition. 

 Indeed, after I had witnessed the ejectment of the Pipits, I 

 expressed to my young friend from Tunstall my conviction that 

 the phenomenon was one of the most marvellous sights in 

 Nature. We stayed about the moor during most of the afternoon 

 of June 11th, leaving the nest for an hour or so at a time, and 

 on our return to it we invariably found one or more of the Pipits 

 on the rim. The old bird never showed the slightest disposition 

 to help its own young back again. Once on my return I flushed 

 the mother — at least, I presumed it to be the mother — when I 

 could not be more than three to six feet from the nest, and by the 

 time I arrived the Cuckoo was just on the point of throwing out 

 one of the Pipits. I could hardly have believed this if I had not 

 had ocular demonstration of the fact. The day was warm and I 

 had a supply of dipterous larvae, which both the Cuckoo and 

 Pipits ate with avidity, so the young birds did not at all suffer 

 any inconvenience from our repeated visits. There were an 

 abundance of adult Cuckoos in the immediate neighbourhood, 

 but not an individual showed any interest whatever, or came 

 very near the nest in question during the whole of the afternoon. 



On June 12th my friend and I visited the nest again, arriving 

 at about 7 a.m., and found all the three Pipits thrown out of 

 the nest, but all were alive. One, however, died shortly after. 

 Mr. Parkin, whom we found at the nest, brought a Pipit's egg 

 from a nest he had found, which he introduced into the nest 

 containing the young Cuckoo, but it was not long before the 

 Cuckoo ejected the strange egg. Then he introduced a young 

 Whinchat from a nest near by, and, perhaps, four days' old ; 

 the Cuckoo soon made two attempts to throw it out, but failed 

 both times, as the Whinchat was not properly balanced on its 



