120 



On certain Peculiarities in the 



may be most convenient for her purpose. Into these nests it is 

 not her habit to intrude herself, for the purpose of laying her egg, 

 as all other birds do ; indeed from her superior size in proportion 

 to the nest, such a course would be generally impossible : but she 

 la}'s her egg on the ground, and then she takes it in her beak, 1 

 and gently deposits it in the nest she has chosen. And that thej 

 Cuckoo does thus avail herself of her beak to place her eggs in! j 

 nests which otherwise would have been inaccessible to her, is not I 

 only a priori established from those cases where no other means \ j 

 were possible, as in certain domed nests with entrance holes at i I 

 the side only, or those which are laid in the holes of trees, as for i 

 instance those of the Wren, the Redstart and others : but we have , I 

 a very interesting account, from a charcoal burner, in the forest of ; j 

 Thiiringer, who happened to be in his rude woodman's hut in the \ j 

 forest, when a Cuckoo, (which he had long observed flying about 

 in the neighbourhood) flew into the hut, not perceiving the owner, 

 perched upon a bench near the entrance, laid an egg, then seized I 

 it in her beak, and placed it in a wren's nest, which was built 

 against the inner side of the hut, while the man looked on in j 

 amazement, and soon after related the " wonder " to the German 

 naturalist, who recorded the event. But I believe this to be her 1 1 

 invariable method, whether the small nest of the foster parent be ! 

 accessible to her or no : and then again this habit of taking the egg I 

 in her beak, and so depositing it in the chosen nest, considered in I 

 conjunction with the similarity of her egg to that of several I 

 species of small birds as detailed farther on, will readily account ■ | 

 for the frequent assertion on the part of eye-witnesses of the I 

 Cuckoo eating the eggs of small birds, which they triumphantly 

 declare they have themselves seen between the mandibles of that I 

 bird's beak. 2 



It is not until after an interval of several days that the Cuckoo j 

 lays another egg in the same manner, and then deposits it in ( 



1 Zoologist, 3145, 7757, 7935, 8165. Hewitson's Eggs of British Birds, vol. i., 

 p. 205. Temminck's Manual d' Ornithologie, vol. i., p. 384. Rennie's Archi- 

 teoture of Birds, p. 378. 



2 Naturalist for 1851, p. 162, for 1852, pp, 33—233. 



