A BIRD- LOVED SUBURB. 
225 
A skill in finding birds’ nests is gained in boyhood alone, and 
when thus fully acquired it never afterwards leaves its possessor ; 
so that, knowing the habits of birds, and their times and places 
of nesting, he readily catches sight of nests, wherever he wanders, 
as a matter of course, and just as easily as he discerns the 
flowers of the field. Thus have I seen nests by scores — in Kew 
Gardens, in Richmond Park and its suburbs, and in the lovely 
Terrace Garden — and it is not difficult to guess, without even 
looking into the nest, whether it contains egg or fledgeling, and 
just as surely can one discern turtle, or cushat, or nightingale. 
In watching birds, too, there is a habit that is acquired, first 
in boyish days, and goes on increasing, by which best to secure 
their confidence and get them to learn to look on you as a friend. 
Such have I everywhere got to find them : and such confidence 
I trust I may ever retain. 
The bird whose form and voice we hail most readily after 
the fogs and storms of winter, is perhaps that “ thrice-welcome 
darling of the spring,” the cuckoo. Cuckoos come in large 
numbers to Richmond ; and some of the earliest make their 
appearance close to the river, in the trees of Cambridge Park, 
just opposite my own garden. For many years I have been in 
the habit of looking out for the earliest arrival of our spring 
migrants, and noting the date at which I first heard the cuckoo. 
Many times I have heard its voice first, unexpectedly, across 
the river from Cambridge Park ; at other times when I have 
been looking out for the bird’s arrival, I have heard and seen it 
first at the edge of Isabella Wood, where it seems to enter Rich- 
mond Park. A cuckoo’s egg I have seen but once in Richmond, 
and that was one spring in our own garden. The cuckoos had 
been unusually numerous in Cambridge Park that spring, and 
had often flown across the river to the Surrey side. And that 
year it happened that a pair of robins, which had reared a brood 
the previous year in a box in our garden, had built their nest in 
one of the boxes, and had there laid two eggs. But on looking 
in one morning, I saw a similar egg, though a little bit larger, 
lying close beside the other two. Up to that time, I had only 
seen a cuckoo’s egg when laid beside the “ eggs of heavenly 
blue” of the hedge- warbler, where it was clearly to be recog- 
nised. And the hole in the box was much too small for a cuckoo 
ever to get through. This, however, was a cuckoo’s egg, which 
must have been brought and placed there by the cuckoo’s beak. 
It would have been interesting to note the hatching of the young 
cuckoo, and watch its sad behaviour towards its nest-mates ; 
but whether the robins had ever been deceived before or not I 
cannot say ; anyhow, they forsook this nest, and went off and 
built a nest and reared their brood in another box. The excel- 
lent collection in the fine Natural History Museum at South 
Kensington enabled me to settle such a question as this by 
seeing there a cuckoo’s egg lying beside robin’s eggs in a 
robin’s own nest. 
