Cuckoos Again One more word on the Great Cuckoo Controversy
which continues to generate no little heat. The great Fabre (always a charming if not always an accurate guide) wrote of the cuckoo that she "lays her egg on the ground and takes it up in her beak, puts it in a sort of pocket in the base of the gullet—a pocket provided for that purpose—and flies through the neighbouring thickets on the lookout for a place for its final reception. When she finds a nest to suit her, she stretches her neck over the edge, opens her beak, lets the egg gently drop among the others." This is probably the standard view on the Continent. It is the view that Mr. Chance disputed and believes himself to have disproved in regard to the eggs deposited in the meadow pipits' nests. I return to this vexed subject not to uphold any one view, but to report a curious extension of this theory of regurgitation.
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