NOTES AND QUERIES. 271 
the question how far each Cuckoo is influenced by the peculiarities of the 
birds which rear it? I described the pugnacious habits of the one found in 
the nest of the Twite, in common with its kind when approached by man, 
and my last visit to the nest found the young Cuckoo able to fly when IL 
picked it up and replaced it in the nest. The following morning the nest 
was empty, and two days later a bird which might be reasonably supposed 
to be the same Cuckoo was found perched on a willow about one-fourth of 
a mile from the nest, and alongside a Wood Pigeon which was nesting on 
the same tree. The Cuckoo, on being taken into the finder’s hands and 
released, went back to its place by the Pigeon’snest. Did the Pigeon assist 
it in any way with its food? It certainly did not find fault with the Cuckoo 
as a neighbour, and it is clear that the Cuckoo at least valued the com- 
panionship, whatever benefit that might have conferred. Another question 
now arises, would the foster-parents follow up and support the bird as they 
do their own young when they leave the nest? or do the parent Cuckoos 
or any of them take any immediate charge of the young at this stage ? 
Again, how do they commence to gather food for themselves ? As they are 
supposed to require nearly all their time in the adult state to pick up the 
necessary food for their support in our climate, it seems to me that there 
must be some provision in nature more or less peculiar to the species for 
providing for their support from the time they leave the nest until they are 
capable of adequately attending to themselves. In the case noticed there 
were no signs of the presence of the foster-parents when the young Cuckoo 
was found in company with the Pigeon. The Mountain Linnet is rather 
demonstrative when anything calculated to disturb its young occurs, and 
its absence in this case would favour the idea of the duties having been 
concluded, although they keep close to their own young for some time after 
they are able to fly about. Then how do young Cuckoos proceed in leaving 
us? The last incidents to which I have referred occurred about the middle 
of July, after Cuckoos were mute ; but I noticed at least one adult after that 
date. I have never heard in what way they leave us, whether solitary or in 
company. ‘The young and adults have both to migrate from us, while there 
are only adults to come to usin spring. Would those which are hatched in 
any place return to it or its neighbourhood the following year? or would the 
birds in general have a tendency to retain through life their first haunts, or 
would they be indifferent to this? Of course they foliow certain physical 
aspects of the country, as, for example, they frequent young plantations, 
these yielding abundance of food.W. Witson (Alford, Aberdeen). 
Kites in Wales.—A few days after reading Mr. J. H. Salter’s paper in 
‘The Zoologist’ (ante, p. 198) entitled ‘‘Ornithological Notes from Mid- 
Wales,” I chanced to open a volume of ‘ Blackwood’ for 1839. From an 
article headed ‘‘ An Excursion over the Mountains to Aberystwith,” I make 
