380 MR. J. H. GURNEY ON THE ECONOMY OP THE CUCKOO. 
was ultimately killed by a cat (‘The Field,’ Jan. 23rd, 1888). 
The German naturalist Johann Naum an n recounts bow a Cuckoo,' 
undoubtedly a male, with a very peculiar call, returned to the 
same place, season after season, for twenty-five years. Naumann, who 
was himself convinced, remarks: — “ It would be an almost incredible 
coincidence if just such another bird with the same soft peculiar cry 
should have taken possession of the former Cuckoo’s old quarters.” 
If a Magpie can live twenty-one years ( Zool. 1850, p. 2824), there 
is nothing improbable in a Cuckoo’s living twenty-five, and there 
are a great many birds which live far longer than that. My father 
knew of a Cuckoo which returned to the same garden wall, at 
Easton, for eight years, presumably the same bird, and Booth 
mentions a pied one two years running at Ilickling. 
Cuckoos have been often kept in cages, but they are not agreeable 
pets, and never get through more than two winters, more often 
only one. The experience of Mr. George Davis of Gloucester, who 
has brought up no less than forty young Cuckoos, is that they are 
best fed on meal worms, but when tempted will eat young birds 
(Zool. 1896, p. 357), a morbid appetite, not indicative of what 
would happen in their natural surroundings surely. 
The Supposed Pouch. 
This is hardly the place for a discussion on the anatomy of the 
Cuckoo, but I cannot refrain from saying something about the 
supposed pouch. In skinning a Cuckoo it may be noticed that 
the oesophagus is wide at the orifice, and the skin of the neck some- 
times very gelatinous inside, as first pointed out by Thompson, 
which must have given rise to the idea in some people’s minds that 
Cuckoos possess a pouch or internal throat pocket, large enough to 
carry their eggs in. The small size of the egg, .85 x .75, lends 
colour to such a theory, but the truth is, the gape is so capacious 
that no pouch is wanted. Such evidence as there is in the 
matter is but feeble. The late Mr. G. Swaysland, a well-known 
Brighton taxidermist, affirmed that he had found, once at least, what 
amounted to a membranous sac or pocket, and that it was behind 
the tongue : this seemed explicit, especially as another experi- 
menter, living at Exeter, was also able to speak of an interior 
