Mil. J. II. OURNEY ON THE ECONOMY OF THE CUCKOO. 3G9 
public ones, where Cuckoo’s eggs have been deposited in nests, 
past which people were coming and going all day, but no doubt the 
intrusion was effected at early sunrise by the old Cuckoo, the 
future of whose young one is then assured, provided the fosterers 
do not forsake, but the Cuckoo does not always lay in the morning. 
Cuckoo’s eggs are hatched the beginning of June, after which 
Titlarks and Wagtails do not pay much regard to any Cuckoos, 
except young ones, neither is its full song heard again. Shakespeare 
knew this when he said : — 
“ So when he had occasion to be seen 
He was hut as the Cuckoo is in June, 
Heard, not regarded.” 
Meshy IV. 
The latest egg 1 have found was on June 28th, but Colonel Butler 
tells me of a fresh egg in a Yellow Hammer’s nest on July 3rd, 
and of a young Cuckoo unable to fly on the 28th of July last. 
Most of the eggs in his collection were taken during the first week 
in June, in different years (‘ Zoologist,’ 1895, p. 230), near Bury, or 
at Fritton Lake, near Yarmouth, a locality which has attractions for 
Cuckoos, on both sides of the water. If the foster-bird is not 
quite happy with the splendid usurper’s egg which she is deluded 
into the belief that she has herself laid, she will perhaps move it 
from one side of the nest to the other, and if there is reason to 
think it unfertile, ultimately bury it in the lining of the nest, 
rejected. In June, 1877, Mr. Norgate saw a Cuckoo’s egg, in 
Ilockering Wood, on the ground, beside a Tree Pipit’s nest, which 
egg had some hours before been seen to be in the nest ; and there 
is similar evidence by other observers, showing the disposition 
above-mentioned. I have more than once had Cuckoo’s eggs taken 
as I believe by rats, but it may have been by mice. 
It is a little singular that Sir Thomas Browne makes no mention 
of the Cuckoo, for it would not be hard to name several marshy 
places in Norfolk where Cuckoos rather abound, and often 
lay their eggs in Reed Warblers’ nests. Mr. Fiorgate, who has 
found as many Cuckoo’s eggs as most people, has noticed an odd 
trait , viz., that those Reed Warblers’ nests which contain Cuckoo’s 
eggs have sometimes Cuckoo’s feathers woven into the outside or 
bottom of the nests. If this be the work of the Cuckoo, it can 
only be regarded as an additional inducement to the foster-parents 
to take charge of the young Cuckoo, by habituating them to the 
