102 
THE CUCKOO’S SECRET 
At times, after a long period of isolated observa- 
tion, she would suddenly fly away, though as 
often as not this was obviously due to some one 
passing within, say, fifty yards or so. On such 
occasions she would either dart away across the 
forest out of sight, or make a circuitous flight 
round the common, only to return to the same 
perch in the same tree. When she was seriously 
bent upon watching a particular pair of fosterers, 
her return would be only a matter of a few minutes 
or so, but only a practised eye would observe her 
come back. As the time for the actual laying of 
her egg approached, her flight became noticeably 
heavier. And when she was ready to lay, her 
flight to the nest was in the nature of an aeroplane 
glide to earth. Such occasional flaps of the wing 
as she might require to reach the nest were slow 
and laboured, somewhat resembling the lazy flight 
of Buzzard or Owl. 
With one’s Zeiss glasses— I wish there were 
glasses made in England like them ! — focussed on 
the female Cuckoo sitting motionless in a tree on 
observation bent, one could at times gather the 
impression that she had some sort of mesmeric 
effect upon her intended victims. For one or both 
of the pair of Meadow Pipits upon which she was 
