66 
THE CUCKOO’S SECRET 
centre orchard from the direction in which she had 
last been seen to fly. A little later she again flew 
to tree E and took up precisely the same perch 
which she had occupied before. Exactly at 4.30 
she once again floated out of the tree and settled 
on the ground for a few seconds, apparently beside 
the nest. Her flight and visit to the nest were too 
sudden and of too brief duration to enable me to 
have my field-glasses in position and watch in 
hand, so I could neither see nor time the operation 
as precisely as I had intended. After the few 
moments spent at the nest, the Cuckoo, chased by 
one only of the Meadow Pipits (whereas at the nest 
both were clearly seen fluttering around her), flew 
away through a neighbouring orchard on the south 
side and disappeared. Going up to the nest I was 
rejoiced to find that one of the Pipit’s eggs was 
missing and replaced by that of the Cuckoo, which 
was still quite warm. Having waited so patiently 
since 10.30 a.m., Mrs. Brown had gone to get some 
tea at 4.20 p.m., and so missed seeing the event by 
ten minutes. Thus at last my ambition had been 
attained, but the suddenness and the manner of 
the performance were so far from what I had 
expected that very much was left to be discovered 
on subsequent occasions. It was at least certain 
