Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 3 (1899).djvu/349

Rh assimilated. In the course of a recent conversation with a friend, he informed me that some time ago he shot at a Cuckoo, flying over a disused quarry, in the very act of singing, wounding it in its wing, thus rendering it unable to continue its flight, though otherwise apparently uninjured. To his astonishment, whilst killing it, an egg was deposited in his hand. If this statement be true—and I have no reason to dispute it, as I have in the past ever found his statements unimpeachable—then the position of those who assert that it is the male bird only that sings is untenable. I pointed out to him that perhaps after all the song might have proceeded from a male bird in the immediate neighbourhood. He, however, denied that he could possibly be mistaken under the circumstances.— (Wilsden, near Bradford).

Cuckoo's Egg in Nest of Red-backed Shrike.—As I called attention to the extreme rarity of the Cuckoo's egg in the Shrike's nest (ante, p. 223), I ought to mention that on June 15th I had one brought to me in East Suffolk with three eggs of the Red-backed Shrike. A few days previously I saw a Nightingale's nest in situ, with three eggs of the foster-parent and one Cuckoo's egg, which, by the kindness of the owner of the property, I was allowed to acquire. A neighbour was recently watching a Hedge-Sparrow's nest which he thought might produce an egg of the Cuckoo, and visited it one day, when it contained four eggs of the owner; next day one of the eggs was gone, and a Cuckoo's egg was left in its place. This Cuckoo's egg, to my friend's utter astonishment, was well advanced in incubation, while the eggs of the foster-parent were almost fresh. Where and how had the incubation of the Cuckoo's egg taken place?— (Tostock Rectory, Bury St. Edmunds).

Arrival of Spring Migrants in Yorkshire.—I herewith send a list of spring migrants, as observed by myself and son, with dates of first appearance for the current year:—