other
determined hunters of the cuckoo. It seems impossible, when we observe
the larger bird's unmistakable desire to win free of them, to attribute
friendly feelings to its pursuers. Yet some writers have held the
curious belief that, with lingering memories of the days when, a year
ago, they devoted themselves to the ugly foster-child, the little birds
still regard the stranger with affection. If so, then they have an
eccentric way of showing it, and the cuckoo, driven by the chattering
little termagants from pillar to post, may well pray to be saved from
its friends. On the other hand, even though convinced of their
hostility, it is not easy to believe, as some folks tell us, that they
mistake the cuckoo for a hawk. Even the human eye, though slower to take
note of such differences, can distinguish between the two, and the
cuckoo's note would still further undeceive them. The most satisfactory
explanation of all perhaps is that the nest memories do in truth
survive, not, however, investing the cuckoo with a halo of romance, but
rather branding it as an object of suspicion, an interloper, to be
driven out of the neighbourhood at all costs ere it has time to billet
its offspring on the hard-working residents. All of which is, needless
to say, the merest guesswork, since any attempt to interpret the
simplest actions of birds is likely to lead us into erroneous
conclusions. Yet, of the two, it certainly seems more reasonable to
regard the smaller birds as resenting the parasitic habit in the cuckoo
than to admit that they can actually welcome the murder of their own
offspring to make room in the nest for the ugly changeling foisted on
them by this fly-by-night.

On the _lucus a non lucendo_ principle, the cuckoo is chiefly
interesting as a parent. The bare fact is that our British kind builds
no nest of its own, but puts its eggs out to hatch, choosing for the
purpose the nests of numerous small birds which it knows to be suitable.
Further investigation of the habits of this not very secretive bird,
shows that she first lays her egg on the ground and then carries it in
her bill to a neighbouring nest. Whether she first chooses the nest and
then lays the egg destined to be hatched in it, or whether she lays each
egg when so moved and then hunts about for a home for it, has never been
ascertained. The former method seems the more practical of the two. On
the other hand, little nests of the right sort are so plentiful in Ma