84 
NATURE NOTES 
breast, garden warbler, willow wren, chifF-chafF, linnet, accentor, 
martin,* swallowt, greenfinch, chaffinch, rook, thrush, blackbird, 
starling, redpoll, lark, yellow-bunting, cuckoo, wood-pigeon, &c., 
while from the afore-mentioned private grounds came the harsh 
scream of the peacock and cries of foreign water fowl. 
Of the insect life abounding I made no note. Bees of all 
kinds were busy, and as I stirred the grass and leaves with my 
stick, beetles innumerable (large and small) were disturbed and 
scurried away to shelter. Butterflies, yellow, white and blue, 
fluttered about everywhere. 
I fain would have lingered, but my time was gone, so I 
reluctantly turned away from nature’s beauty and set my face 
once more to the prosaic duties of life, but refreshed physically 
and mentally by this brief converse with the things of nature. 
The memory of this occasion is green now as I write this, after 
the space of just two years. 
“ This world is very lovely, O my God ! 
I thank Thee that I live.” 
“ Not a flower 
But shows some touch in freckle, streak, or stain, 
Of His unrivalled pencil. 
There is not one but 
Seems, as it issues from the shapeless mould. 
An emanation of the indwelling life, 
A visible token of the upholding loves. 
That are the soul of this wide universe.” 
Wesley T. Page, P.Z.S. 
THE EARLY LIFE OF THE YOUNG CUCKOO. 
HE cuckoo has always been the subject of considerable 
controversy and debate, and with all our wonderful 
strides in the scientific world we have as yet failed to 
solve many of the mysteries which surround its life 
and habits. 
With all our years of careful and patient observation we 
have not yet fathomed the mystery of why the cuckoo does not 
build a nest of its own, and as to how many eggs one female 
lays during a season. True, we have by this time exploded the 
altogether erroneous statement that the bird lays its eggs in the 
nest of the species with which it had decided to entrust its off- 
spring, as it is now proved beyond a doubt that the bird does not 
lay the egg in the nest nor does it carry the egg in its claws, but 
first lays the egg on the ground and carries it to the selected 
nest in its mouth. 
Hit undo urbica. 
t Hirundo ruslica. 
