358 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
in the floor of the nest. As I was going that day on a visit to Mr. Aplin, 
I took the nest with me; we extracted the egg from its hole, blew it and 
replaced it, and had the nest photographed.* This is, I believe, the first 
instance on record in this country of a Cuckoo’s egg being laid in a Marsh 
Warbler’s nest. Whether this can throw any light on the peculiar position 
of the egg in the nest may indeed be doubtful ; but I am inclined to guess 
that this Cuckoo is in the habit of depositing her eggs in the nests of Sedge 
Warblers or Whitethroats, and that, finding herself too late for these (for 
a Whitethroat that had a nest hard by had been sitting a long time, and the 
Sedge Warblers in the osiers had young already), she put the egg into the 
Marsh Warbler’s nest when only one or perhaps two eggs had been laid in 
it. And it is just possible that the striking contrast between the Cuckoo’s 
egg and those of the intended foster-parent enabled the latter to discover 
the intruder, which she buried in the bottom of the nest out of sight, adding 
some new materials, e.g. the wool I have mentioned, with this end in view. 
However this may be, the facts are as I have described them, and the nest 
will be placed in the Oxford Museum, with the Cuckoo’s egg thus buried, 
so that anyone who may be studying the ways of the Cuckoo and its victims 
will be able to form an opinion for himself. On July Ist I was glad to 
find that the birds were evidently at work on a new nest; the cock was 
singing vigorously in heavy rain at six in the afternoon, a sure sign of 
renewed activity. After a short absence I returned on the 6th, to find that 
another of the three nests had been discovered and destroyed ; but in the 
third the young were just ready to fly. They are now (July 9th) about in 
the osiers with their parents, whose warning notes, more musical and 
agreeable than the harsh grating of the Sedge Warblers, are to be heard on 
every side. The plumage of the young birds is, as I observed two years ago, 
much darker and more rufous than that of the parents, and the throat and 
breast are of a warm buff. I may add that the vigorous singing still going 
on shows clearly that one new nest at least has been built within the last 
few days.—W. WarDE Fow er (Kingham, Chipping Norton). 
On the Nesting of the Spotted Flycatcher.—A pair of Common Fly- 
catchers (Muscicapa grisola) nesting in my garden built their first nest on 
the spouting against the house, which unfortunately was pulled away during 
building repairs. The second nest, which they started to build a few days 
after, on May 31st, was placed in a rose tree nailed to the house within a few 
feet of the old site. On June 6th the nest was finished, and on the 7th the 
first egg was laid. ‘To notify at what hour the eggs were laid, I visited the 
nest at 5 a.m. the next morning without finding a further addition ; the 
* It may be as well to state that the Cuckoo’s egg was quite fresh when 
blown ; it was small even for a Cuckoo’s, but had the usual hard shell, 
ee” 
