PREFACE 
Vll 
culled from the writings of others. These experi- 
ences are recorded step by step so that it can be 
seen and understood how they led up to such a 
comprehensive knowledge of the habits of a Cuckoo 
that I was at length, on several occasions, enabled 
to be instrumental in the successful filming of her 
in the act of laying her egg. 
This film was exhibited to the members of the 
Zoological Society, Regent’s Park, London, on 
Tuesday, November 8, 1921, and, by the courtesy 
of that Society, on the following evening to the 
British Ornithologists’ Union. The following Wed- 
nesday (November 16) at the New Gallery Kinema, 
Regent Street, selections from the film, profusely 
interspersed with explanatory titles, were exhibited 
to members of the Film Trade, Press, and general 
public — an enthusiastic audience numbering nearly 
700 people. At the conclusion, speeches were 
made by Viscount Grey of Fallodon and Sir Robert 
Baden-Powell endorsing the scientific and educa- 
tional value of the film. The exhibition rights 
have now been leased, with an option of purchase, 
to British Instructional Films, Ltd., of The Studio, 
Boreham Wood, Elstree, Herts, whose intention it 
is to exploit it, under the title of “ The Cuckoo’s 
Secret,” in association with five other Natural 
