106 
MISCELLANEOUS NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 
I believe I may say it was almost impossible for her to have done 
so. Nor, indeed, was there any appearance of her having attempted 
anything of the kind. The grass, through which the Titlark had 
her small opening for ingress and egress, was as undisturbed as when 
we left it. But it was perfectly easy for the Cuckoo to have reached 
the nest with her bill, by stretching in her head and neck through 
the Titlark’s opening ; and, therefore, observing all these particulars, 
I came to the conclusion, — and I have never doubted that it was 
a correct conclusion, — that the egg was first laid on the grass, 
and then removed by the Cuckoo, by means of her bill, into the 
place where her instinct told her her future offspring was to be 
cared for. 
[There is no longer the least doubt in the minds of ornithologists 
that the Cuckoo habitually deposits its egg on the ground, and then 
takes it in its mouth and drops it into a nest, though the action is 
of necessity almost impossible to witness. Indeed, no one has ever 
by ocular proof demonstrated that a Cuckoo sits on a nest to lay 
its egg, which shows that there are still points remaining open for 
investigation in the economy of this singular bird. It has indeed 
been asserted by Herr Muller that, in exceptional circumstances, the 
Cuckoo will sit on and hatch its own eggs, but his observations are 
doubted (of ‘Journal fur Ornithologie,’ 1889, p. 33, and translation 
of both articles in ‘The Zoologist,’ vol. xiii. p. 214).— J. II. G.] 
XV. 
MISCELLANEOUS NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 
May-day Customs at Lynn. — A Survival. — Those of us who, 
at the present time, are so much interested in the study of 
Nature, cannot fail to sympathise with such of our fellow-men 
who, in times long past, actually worshipped various natural 
objects and phenomena. It is not a little remarkable that 
the influences of the Christian religion, operating through so 
many centuries, have not been sufficient completely to eradicate all 
