THIRD SEASON (1920): RECORD 75 
of an egg between her mandibles. So short had 
been her stay at the nest that I yet feared that 
this egg she was so carrying might be her own, 
and so I did not hurry to the nest. But five 
minutes later all of us had assembled there and 
found it to contain the Cuckoo’s fourteenth egg 
and one only of the Pipit’s, the former being still 
quite warm. 
The Laying of the Fifteenth Egg , June 10. 
Owing to the presumed rapid massacre of the 
Meadow Pipits by the Kestrel, we did not know 
of any nest available for the Cuckoo to-day. Nor 
in fact, as after events proved, was there a Meadow 
Pipit’s nest with egg or eggs on the common. 
Anticipating the difficulty in these circumstances 
of getting in sufficiently close touch with the Cuckoo 
to ascertain definitely what she would do, I had 
asked my friend, P. B. Smyth of Wanstead, to 
come down specially for the day’s operations. 
At 1.30 p.m. Smyth, the two Simmondses, and 
I took up positions so that between us we controlled 
a fairly good view of the whole area. At 12.45 we 
had seen the Cuckoo, attended by No. 6 pair of 
Meadow Pipits, sitting in a cherry tree (A) in the 
centre orchard. A little later she had flown right 
