8166 



Birds. 



favour of this supposition, yet it should be borne in mind that the 

 bird had remained tumbling about upon the ground for some seconds 

 after it fell, and therefore that the egg might possibly have been laid 

 during the struggle. After having searched the hedge without finding 

 a nest of any description, we held a post mortem upon the body of 

 our unfortunate victim, which resulted in the discovery of a perfect 

 egg in the oviduct ; but to this remarkable circumstance I shall pre- 

 sently have occasion to revert. 



One striking peculiarity in the history of the cuckoo appears to 

 have met with but little attention, viz., that it differs from other birds 

 as to the time at which it deposits its egg in the nest : of course I do 

 not refer to birds in a state of domestication. Careful observation of 

 twenty different species of our insessorial birds has enabled me to 

 ascertain the fact that, as a general rule, they lay their eggs between 

 the hours of seven and twelve p.m., whereas those of the cuckoo are 

 usually, perhaps invariably, placed in the nest during the daytime. 

 Now, although it is perfectly justifiable to suppose that the cuckoo, 

 like other birds, possesses the power of retaining an egg for a con- 

 siderable time after it is ready for exclusion, and therefore that, 

 instead of laying at night, it postpones the process until a suitable 

 repository is found, yet that period must have its limit. And here it 

 may well be asked, What is the consequence when no such opportu- 

 nity occurs, and Nature will no longer permit the delay ? Any other 

 bird thus circumstanced would lay in its unfinished nest ; but it 

 would be difficult to imagine that the cuckoo, which is so pre- 

 eminently subject to the inconvenience in question, should be the 

 only bird whose requirements in this respect are unprovided for ; 

 therefore it is far from unreasonable to infer that some special pro- 

 vision is made to meet the emergency. The numerous observations 

 which have from time to time appeared in the pages of the 'Zoologist' 

 and elsewhere, go very far to substantiate the theory that when the 

 cuckoo can no longer retain its egg the latter is laid in some conve- 

 nient place, and there remains until the parent removes it, having at 

 length found a nest for its reception ; and that this is not merely a 

 conjectural view of the case the following will, I think, pretty clearly 

 prove. 



Several years ago, about four o'clock one afternoon in June, my 

 brother Gordon came in haste to inform me that he had just driven 

 from a meadow pipit's nest a cuckoo, which had turned out an egg 

 and two newly-hatched young birds, one egg only remaining undis- 

 turbed ; but upon accompanying him to the spot, I was not a little 



