1 JULY 1922, Page 24

" THE CUCKOO'S SECRET."

[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] SIAM I have just read the letter in your issue of June 10th of Mr. Wilson with regard to the above, in which he says that " he cannot refrain from saying that perhaps Mr. Chance has not quite solved the mystery." Some fifty years ago I found a " cuckoo's egg " in a wren's nest, which I took, and showed it to the late great ornithologist, Mr. Gould. He was much interested, because, he said, it helped to prove that the egg had been laid first and then popped into the nest. In this case, too, it conformed much to the colour of the wren's egg, and also was a little smaller in size than the ordinary cuckoo's egg.—