The Cuckoo's Secret That irrepressible bird, the cuckoo, which has
been present this year in great quantity, flutters many dovecots. One of the cardinal controversies—how the egg is introduced into the small birds nest—has been advanced a stage by the very remarkable observations of Mr. Buriyardi told in a letter to The Spectator of July 20th. Among more or less recent observa- sions of the behaviour of birds it might. plausibly be said that those of Mr. Edgar Chance and Mi. Bunyard are the two most remarkable. Unfortunately they are diametrically opposed. One man says that the cuekoo always disgorges the egg and puts it into the nest with the beak. The other believes himself to have proved that she "always" lays the egg directly into the nest. Both sets of observation were scientific, and Mr. Chance corroborated his with the eye of the camera.
"Now, who shall arbitrate ?
Ten men love What I hate, Shun what I follow, slight what I receive; Ten, who in ears and eyes Match me : we all surmise
They this thing and I that: whom shall my soul believe ?"
For myself I believe both, except where they cope their evidence with a generalization.
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