By the Rev. A. C. Smith. 



57 



situation and size of the nests preclude, as they often do, the 

 possibility of the egg being laid there, after the usual manner, 

 by a bird sc disproportionate in size to the nest it selects as 

 the cradle for its young ; how the young Cuckoo becomes the 

 sole tenant of the nest, its foster brethren being summarily ex- 

 pelled to make way for its rapidly increasing size, and to enable 

 its foster parents to supply its voracious appetite ; how the young 

 Cuckoo, when come to maturity, follows instinctively in the track 

 of its parent, not being arrived at the requisite point of strength 

 when its parents leave their summer haunts on their annual migra- 

 tion southwards : these, and other similar questions connected with 

 its strange history, I purpose to examine at some future day in a 

 separate paper, for the errors abroad on these points, are almost 

 as wild as they are innumerable, and I am anxious to disperse 

 some of them, and examine into others, upon which naturalists are 

 not yet agreed, but which offer subjects of extreme interest, and 

 well worthy the attention of all out-door observers, but which I 

 reserve for the present, and will not now trespass further on the 

 pages of the magazine. 



Alfred Charles Smith. 



Yatesbury Rectory, Caine, 

 August 22nd, 1864. 



