THE CUCKOO’S SECRET 
their breeding territories from north-east to south- 
west across the common. A study of the detailed 
record, which follows, of the nidification time- 
table of each pair of Meadow Pipits, will satisfy 
any experienced ornithologist that there has been 
little or no confusion between the different pairs. 
As we discovered the Cuckoo to be laying only 
on each alternate day, it is apparent that so long as 
there were nine pairs of Meadow Pipits it was not 
necessary to “ restart ” each so soon as a complete 
clutch of eggs had been laid. (“ Restarting ” a 
nest, of course, means removing all the eggs and 
thus causing the birds to set about building 
again.) In fact, to restart more than one pair 
every forty-eight hours (or, to allow for acci- 
dents, rather more frequently than that) would 
only provide the Cuckoo with more suitable 
fosterers than she would require, and when we 
did so we not only imposed upon ourselves the 
additional burden of finding added nests, but also 
— what was far more important — made it more 
difficult accurately to foretell in which particular 
one the Cuckoo would lay her next egg. 
The Cuckoo’s egg was always taken as soon as 
found for fear of accident, but, except when cir- 
cumstances threatened an insufficiencv of Meadow 
