NOTES AND QUERIES 



273 



old birds would have done so in the instances I have given. I believe 

 on the first occasion the distress of the old birds lasted several hours 

 before the signalman discovered the cause of their trouble. — John 

 E. B. Masefield (Rosehill, Cheadle, Staffordshire). 



Me. Patterson, in his interesting article, " Some Mud-flat Bird- 

 Notes " (ante, p. 211), referring to the Redshank, says : " Whether it 

 carries its young as the Woodcock does at times I am not sure, but I 

 strongly suspect it." A few years ago a relative of mine, who has all 

 his life lived close to the haunts of this bird, told me that he had seen 

 a Redshank on the wing carrying a young bird between its legs. This 

 he did without any leading up to the subject or reference to this habit 

 in the Woodcock. He evidently considered it a very remarkable 

 thing, and asked me whether I had ever known of a like occurrence. 

 — G. T. Rope (Blaxhall, Suffolk). 



Notes from Wilsden, Yorkshire. — From an ornithological point of 

 view the present breeding season so far has had some quite exceptional 

 features. The Cuckoo up to the end of May was exceedingly scarce ; not 

 more than perhaps four Cuckoos had arrived in all Bingley Woods. 

 At or about this date we received large accessions, but, strange to say, 

 I have sought assiduously in all likely places to find a Cuckoo's egg, 

 but have failed up to the present ; neither has one been recorded as 

 having been found by anyone else, though during the month of June 

 Cuckoos have been quite abundant, this late arrival in such numbers 

 in June having probably been caused by the presence of myriads of 

 caterpillars, upon which they must have largely fed. A similar move- 

 ment among Cuckoos occurred here some three or four years ago. 

 The scarcity of their eggs in June can only be explained on the 

 supposition that they laid their eggs previously to their coming here. 

 When at Hastings Museum in May last my son showed me the nest of 

 a Pied Wagtail which had been found near Hastings, and which con- 

 tained four eggs and one egg of the Cuckoo. Previously to the egg of 

 the Cuckoo having been deposited the nest had contained six eggs, but 

 at the time of the introduction of the egg of the Cuckoo two of 

 them mysteriously disappeared. Whether these were removed by the 

 Cuckoo — and I have little doubt on this point — or through some 

 other agency, it is unquestionably true that nests containing a 

 Cuckoo's egg or eggs have seldom their full complement. Prof. New- 

 ton's explanation of this point, in his monumental work, 1 Dictionary 

 of Birds,' seems somewhat weak and inadequate to account for 

 the phenomenon in question. My son also showed me the nest 



Zool. 4th ser. vol. XIII., July, 1909. y 



