90 The American Naturalist. [Januaryy 
one cockoo’s egg and the clutch of hedge-sparrow’s eggs.” Now, it 
may be asked, how, from this account, is one to be sure that the egg was 
laid by the cuckoo that was seen to fly out of the hedge? There is no 
statement that the bird was watched from day to day, or that it was 
known to roost and feed in that immediate vicinity. No one is said to 
have gone early in the morning to the roosting tree and from that 
time follow and note the actions of the bird through the day until it 
' went to roost again for the night. It is improbable that such obser- 
vations were made in this case in this way. Yet it is not impossible to 
make them thus carefully, for it has been done in studying the feeding 
habits of our American cuckoo. 
Aside from this criticism the observations are very interesting so far 
as they go. For instance in 1889, he found the nest of a European 
blackbird situated in a depression in the ground very much as one 
usually finds the nests of the skylark. Several other blackbirds nests 
were found by the keeper of the wood, which were similarly placed. 
Two thrushes nests were also found in the neighborhood, and like those 
of the blackbirds on the ground. The wood abounded in thickets and 
fir trees, but these more favorable places contained very few black- 
birds or thrushes’ nests. It was learned upon inquiry that the pro- 
prietor finding the wood a stronghold for these species had made- 
systematic raids upon their nests in consequence of their destruction of 
his fruit. Did the birds profit by experience and seek a safer position 
for their nests ? 
The other instance to be noted concerns the sandpiper. “In May, 
1886, just when these birds were commencing to set,” the author says, 
we had a very heavy rainfall, heavier than any remembered by my 
father, who is over eighty years of age. The land on each side of the 
river near my house was under water. The common sandpiper usually 
nests on patches of gravel thrown up by the water, and more or less 
covered with docks and other weeds. These places being flooded, the 
nests were swept away and destroyed. On the subsidence of the flood, 
the sandpipers built again on their old sites, only to find their nests 
swept away by another flood. In the nesting season of the following 
year (1887), wishing to secure a few clutches of sandpiper’s eggs, 
searched in the usual places for a whole morning without success. The 
next day I accidently came upon a sandpiper’s nest containing four 
eggs, the nest being placed at the foot of a willow fully 100 yards from 
the river. The discovery put me on the right track, and I found six 
more nests in various positions, all a long way from the river.” Evi 
dently this was profiting by experience and the conclusion is borneout 
