Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 2 (1898).djvu/509

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Large Bank Vole in Kent.—On Oct. 5th, Mr. Oxenden Hammond, of St. Alban's Court, Wingham, very kindly sent me the largest specimen of Microtus glareolus that I have ever seen. It was a female, and without any undue stretching measured 6½ in. from tip of nose to tip of tail; length of head and body, 4£ in.; length of tail, 2 in. Bell gives the length of the head and body of the female as 3·40 in., and of the tail 1·50 in. Unfortunately when it reached me it was much too far gone for preservation; it was evidently suckling young, and this would hasten on decomposition.— (Heworth, York).

Economy of the Cuckoo.—There are one or two points in Mr. H.S. Davenport's interesting notes on the economy of the Cuckoo on which I should like to make a few remarks. During the last eight seasons I have myself taken from the nests in which they were deposited thirty eggs of the Cuckoo, but in no case was there any material difference in the period of incubation of the Cuckoo's egg and those of the foster-parent. I never found more than one Cuckoo's egg in a nest; three were with five eggs of the owner, ten with four, six with three, five with two, and four with one. One was in a nest with two flourishing young Hedge-sparrows, the young Cuckoo being dead and partly decomposed in the shell, and one was found with no other egg under somewhat exceptional circumstances. About the middle of June, 1895, I saw a Cuckoo very near an ivy wall in our garden, from which an egg had been taken with a clutch of Pied Wagtail about a fortnight before, and, happening to have a Greenfinch's nest with fresh egg's by me, I carefully placed this nest with three eggs in it in the ivy. About two days after I found two of the eggs were gone, one of which lay broken on the ground below; and on the following day the last egg had been removed, a Cuckoo's egg being left in its stead. I have tried the same experiment since, but without success. Of the thirty eggs referred to above, nine were from nests of the Sedge Warbler, seven from Pied Wagtail, six from Hedge-sparrow, one each from Thrush, Robin, Blackcap, White-