APPENDIX. 
443 
it as a cuckoo’s; it has since, together with the cuckoo’s skin, been 
presented to the Dublin Natural History Society. From the position 
of the bird as held by me, it is impossible that the egg could have 
come from any place but the bird’s throat, as, if it had been passed in 
the ordinary way, it must have fallen on my arm, and thence to the 
ground on a different spot from that whence I picked it up. On 
dissection by Professor Allman, the bird proved to be a young female, 
and had in her ovary two full-grown eggs, one of them ready to pass 
into the oviduct. In her stomach were the remains of insects and a 
small portion of vegetable matter, but not even with a powerful 
microscope could any remains of eggs be detected, clearly showing 
that the bird was not feeding on eggs ; — it was three o’clock, p.m., 
when she was shot. Do not these facts prove that M. Le Yaillant’s 
observations respecting the African cuckoos ( C . auratus and C. hepaticus ) 
are also applicable to C. canorus (common cuckoo), viz., that she carries 
her egg in her throat, for the purpose of deposition in nests to which 
she could not gain access in the ordinary way ? and may it not be this 
habit which has gained the cuckoo a name she does not appear to 
deserve, that of egg-sucker ? May not persons have shot her with the 
egg in her throat, and naturally imagined that the egg was that of 
another bird, especially as to a superficial observer the eggs of C. ca- 
norus and Pyrgitta domestica (house sparrow) appear identical, though 
easily enough distinguished when examined closely ? In fact, a friend 
of Mr. Haughton’s says he has frequently shot cuckoos with eggs 
entire in their throats, and that he does not doubt but that they were 
the bird’s own.” 
A note to the same effect as the preceding was contributed to Mac- 
gillivray’s 4 British Birds ’ (vol. iii. p. 130), by Mr. D. Weir, but was 
not given on his own authority. 
♦ 
Order BASOBES; 
Passenger Pigeon, vol. ii. p. 18 . 
Individuals which were obtained in Scotland are there noticed. To 
use the words of Mr. B. D. Fitzgerald, jun., writing from Tralee, in 
July 1850; — “ I had in my possession, about two years ago, a pas- 
senger pigeon, which was caught near this town, when unable to fly 
