Birds. 



8235 



is in the highest condition of health. Mr. Phillips has taken for his model— a lesson 

 to thousands of modellers— Nature herself. He has plucked the dead bird feather by 

 feather; he has studied the liviDg bird in its most striking attitude and its most lus- 

 trous plumage ; and he has produced a work which no naturalist, however sceptical, 

 can find a fault in, and which is perfection itself." I strongly recommend my readers 

 to visit this extraordinary work of art : it is a model of laborious painstaking which 

 contrasts very favourably with those frightful productions generally exhibited iu taxi- 

 dermists' windows under the name of "stuffed birds." — Edward Newman. 



Blue Eggs of Chaffinch. — Lately I have seen several notices of blue eggs of the 

 chaffinch. I have seen several, and have two eggs which I took last May, both of 

 them unspotted and of a bluish colour; one, however, has a pink tinge over the thick 

 end. — Robert W. Leven, Windy gates, Fifeshire, October 4, 1862. 



Deposition of Eggs by the Cuckoo. — It appears that my remarks upon the cuckoo 

 (Zool. 8164) have been slightly misunderstood ; but this I can scarcely regret, seeing 

 that this very circumstance has called forth some highly interesting observations from 

 Colonel Newman, which might otherwise have remained unrecorded. In my state- 

 ment, that " in most cases a remarkably short interval elapses between the arrival of 

 the cuckoo at the nest and the deposition of the egg," I lost sight of the fact that the 

 truth of my assertion had been established in a great measure by means of observa- 

 tions upon the habits of the bird, made during the hours of broad daylight, the very 

 period at which, as I have endeavoured to prove, the egg is most likely to be carried 

 in the bill of the parent ; therefore I now freely allow that the egg may be placed in 

 the nest after the usual manner among birds more frequently than I formerly sup- 

 posed ; for it does not follow that because the bird has never been seen in the act late 

 in the evening, while there was yet sufficient light for the discovery of a suitable nest, 

 that such an act is therefore improbable. Nor is it my belief that it is by any means 

 a common occurrence for the cuckoo either to turn out and destroy young birds, or to 

 deposit her egg in the nest after incubation by the foster-parent has commenced ; 

 indeed the contrary may be accepted as the rule ; but that such does occasionally 

 occur there is not the smallest doubt. And in addition to my former statement 

 I would call attention to the following extract from my note-book: — "June 11th. On 

 looking into No. 11 chaffinch's nest this morning, I saw the young ones alive and 

 well ; but upon my return, some hours afterwards, a cuckoo rlew out from the nest. 

 Two of the young ones were still there, but the remaining three were struggling upon 

 the ground. These I replaced, and it was probably owing to my interference that the 

 cuckoo did not again make her appearance at the nest." Some of the numerous 

 readers of the 'Zoologist' have doubtless met with instances of a similar nature. In 

 an exceptional case — such as that in which the cuckoo deposited her egg in the nest 

 of the meadow pipit, the latter having already hatched some of her young — the pro- 

 bability is that the foster-parent would, after the lapse of a few days, remove the egg 

 of the intruder, just as she would do with an addled one of her own ; and it is not 

 impossible that, in the event of her own brood being destroyed, she might even bestow 

 her care upon the cuckoo's egg, and recommence the task of incubation, although her 

 case would certainly be a hard one. We cannot blind ourselves to the fact that 

 instances of cruelty and oppression are not confined to mankind alone, and that the 

 Creator, for the fulfilment of some wise purpose which it is not for us to investigate, 

 suffers them also to occur among lower animals ; therefore the objection to my 

 views by the question of cruelty can scarcely hold good ; for might we not upon the 



