Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 1 (1897).djvu/603

Rh take an egg out of the nest, alight with it on the flower-border, and then, throwing up her head and apparently tossing the egg well back into her throat, crush the shell and let the contents trickle down. She then threw out the shell, which was picked up by the observers. If this is not accepted as good testimony, I would draw Mr. Davenport's notice to Mr. Sach's evidence in Dresser's 'Birds of Europe'; and especially to the narration by another correspondent of 'The Field,' H.L.W., who took out of a Cuckoo's crop, near Worcester, the recognisable remains of some eggs, two of which were Robins, and the rest apparently Hedge Sparrows ('The Field,' Jan. 28th, 1882). There is no bird about which so much has been written as the Common Cuckoo; and yet we have not reached the end of its history by a long way, as these stories show.

Dr. Bowdler Sharpe calls the egg-sucking Cuckoo a myth ('Birds of Great Britain,' vol. ii. p. 26); but the foregoing narrative seems inexplicable in any other way, and must be held to prove that, in one instance at any rate, a Cuckoo deliberately ate eggs. That they remove them from the nests of their dupes few will deny; and I have fairly clear evidence that they remove young nestlings as well.

On the 20th of last May I had been listening to the cry of the Spotted Crake on one of our Norfolk "broads," when three old Cuckoos, one behind the other, probably a hen and two cocks, flew past, and then over a small bog-myrtle bush, about two feet high, which stood quite by itself on the fen. In about three minutes one of these Cuckoo's returned, and, either not seeing or heeding me, entered the little bush, where it remained certainly more than five minutes. I approached very cautiously, but found it impossible, in the long grass, to observe it even with strong binoculars.

A subsequent minute search revealed nothing in the bog-myrtle, but about eight feet from the bush was an empty Yellow Wagtail's nest, scattered round which, at distances varying from two to six feet, were five young Wagtails, doubtless dropped where they were by the Cuckoo. I take it that the object of this Cuckoo was by removing the young to make the old Yellow Wagtail build a new nest in which she might also deposit her egg. Probably Zool. 4th ser. vol. I.. December, 1897.