in the Eastern Atlas . 
317 
in order that he might more easily watch that no other Arab 
took the eggs and deprived him of the reward we had offered. 
Mr. Simpson, on reconsidering the facts of the case, is now of 
opinion that the eggs had been deposited by the bird herself. 
The nest in which these eggs were placed was described as an 
old one, and as probably one of a Magpie (Pica mauritanica ). 
The next nest obtained was on May 30th, and was that taken by 
Mr. Tristram, as related in the paper referred to above. Two 
other eggs were brought to us on another occasion. Returning 
again to the different nests above mentioned, it would appear 
that on no occasion did we find other eggs with those of the 
Cuckoo, and that certainly on two occasions more than one egg 
was found in the nest, viz. in the nest taken by Mr. Simpson, 
and in that taken by Mr. Tristram. Again, there is a proba¬ 
bility, from the fact of the two eggs first brought being equally 
incubated, that they were from the same nest; and it is also pre¬ 
sumable that the four eggs brought on the same day were from 
the same nest, as two of them showed marks of imperfect forma¬ 
tion in the shell, one more than the other, indicating the order 
in which they had been laid. The circumstance of Mr. Tristram 
finding two of the eggs of this bird marked as Pica mauritanica , 
and two others, really Magpies, similarly marked, after all proves 
nothing. They were not taken by any of us, else they would have 
been so noted, but were brought to our tents by some Arab ; and 
it is as likely that he took them from two, three, or four nests, as 
from one. Further evidence than an Arab^s bare statement we 
usually deemed necessary to determine whether the eggs brought 
to us were from one or more nests. I believe it is contrary to our 
experience of parasitic Cuckoos to find nests occupied by eggs, 
certainly of a Cuckoo, more than one in number, and they the 
only eggs in the nest^. I am not disposed to throw any doubt 
upon M. BrehnFs statements respecting the habits of this bird. 
I have not his paper, and I am sorry to say it is now in¬ 
accessible to me; but, if I recollect rightly, he follows the bird 
through the whole of the breeding-season, and had on many 
* In writing to me respecting an egg of the Chrysococcyx lucidus of 
Australia, Mr. W. Bridger says that it was incubated while the eggs of 
Acanthiza chrysorrhaia, in the nest of which he found it, were fresh, show - 
ing that the egg of a parasitic Cuckoo may be the first deposited in a nest. 
