142 
THE CUCKOO’S SECRET 
to-day, but as time wore on we had the usual 
reasons for believing that the Cuckoo intended to 
use No. 7 nest. At 5.14 she floated to it from 
tree F, a distance of eighty yards, alighting beside 
it and within six feet of the hide containing Miss 
Turner and H. F. Witherby. She remained on 
the ground not longer than ten seconds, and then, 
according to Witherby, flew away for no apparent 
cause. However, at 5.18 she again floated from 
her tree, the glide occupying about ten seconds out 
of the thirty-one which passed before she rose and 
flew away with the fosterer’s egg in her beak. 
Witherby states that upon alighting she looked 
round her for a few moments and then slipped on 
to the nest, buried almost out of sight, where she 
remained not more than seven seconds, backing 
out as usual. Miss Turner photographed the 
Cuckoo as she left the nest with one of the fosterer’s 
eggs in her beak. 
Sixteen days later, a day before the substituted 
eggs hatched, another Cuckoo came and took one 
of the eggs and laid her own — the only stranger 
Cuckoo’s egg laid on the common this year ! From 
the appearance of the egg I feel confident that it 
was Cuckoo E of 1919 (see p. 32), a wandering 
Cuckoo without a territory of her own. 
