FIRST SEASON (1918): RECORD 19 
fruitlessly, and was just about to give up for the 
day when I noticed a male Meadow Pipit perching 
on some dead bracken and holding a grub in its 
bill. Watching the bird until it dropped down 
on to the ground, I walked to the spot and soon 
flushed the sitting female. The nest was in very 
short grass and sprouting gorse but skilfully con- 
cealed beneath the shelter of two burnt twigs. It 
contained 3+B 3 . For these I substituted three 
other eggs, to which the Pipit laid a fourth and 
then deserted. 
It is my experience that a Meadow Pipit is 
particularly liable to desert her nest when a Cuckoo’s 
egg is removed without being replaced by an egg v" 
of corresponding size, such as that of a Skylark, 
but she often finishes laying her clutch before 
doing so. 
On June 29 I had a blank day, and feared 
another on the 30th, but just as we were about to 
abandon the hunt I put up a Meadow Pipit from a 
nest holding three of her own eggs plus A 10 and B 4 , 
these eggs being some four days incubated. This 
nest was of particular interest to me for the reason 
that a week previously I had watched a Cuckoo, 
which was itself watching a Meadow Pipit, close 
to this particular spot. The Cuckoo sat in a tree 
