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Doubly Sure
Another oddity of bird habit was observed in the same beautiful garden. Two cuckoos' eggs were laid in one nest, if that phrase is permitted by the impassioned upholders
of the theory that the cuckoo puts the egg in the nest only by the agency of its beak. Fortunately, one egg proved to be addled. The curious may discuss the question whether the wise bird had misgivings about one egg and therefore made things safe, as gardeners do when they are in doubt about a seed-potato. In several rather surprising accounts given lately of the ways of cuckoos, the contributors have added the corroborative detail that the bird flew off and uttered its note. What note is referred to? Of course, " cuckoo," that noto- rious major third, is uttered only by the cock bird; and the rather pretty female note is heard comparatively seldom. The doubt sometimes occurs to one that the alleged egg-layer is a cock bird stealing eggs or, at any rate, engaged in playful operations in the neighbourhood of a chance nest. More than once I have watched a bird, which proved to be a cock, apparently searching and entering a hedge for the purpose of bird's-nesting for some ulterior end.
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