. Woodland, field and shore : wild nature depicted with pen and camera . his, but it often attracted the attention of personscurious in such matters. In the afternoon orevening the Cuckoo calls more frequently than isthe case during earlier hours in the day. I believethat I hold the record of having heard the Cuckoocall the greatest number of times in June 12, 1900, I listened to one uttering itscry Cuckoo, or perhaps more correctly, k/ioo-hoo, fourhundred and thirteen times. There were one ortwo very short pauses, to take breath, as it were,but with these exceptions, the bird ke
. Woodland, field and shore : wild nature depicted with pen and camera . his, but it often attracted the attention of personscurious in such matters. In the afternoon orevening the Cuckoo calls more frequently than isthe case during earlier hours in the day. I believethat I hold the record of having heard the Cuckoocall the greatest number of times in June 12, 1900, I listened to one uttering itscry Cuckoo, or perhaps more correctly, k/ioo-hoo, fourhundred and thirteen times. There were one ortwo very short pauses, to take breath, as it were,but with these exceptions, the bird kept on untiringlycalling for the number of times stated. When Ibegan to count, he had been at his performance sometime ; when I finished he made a pause of abouta minute, and then recommenced without showingany symptoms of fatigue. There is still much to be found out about theCuckoo. I regret that I have had so few oppor-tunities of observing its habits. Although there areso many individual birds about, nearly every nestthat would be likely to contain one of their eggs. cuckoos egg in greexfixchs xest (clckoos egg on the right). lOO WOODLAND, FIELD, AND SHORE is always robbed, either by an egg-stealing bird,or by, what is far worse, one of the numerous bandsof loafers who haunt the neighbourhood, and seemto get their chief pleasure in destroying nests ; oreven in the more brutal pastime of placing unfledgedyoung on a gatepost or fence and then stoningthe helpless little birds to death—this usually takingplace under the eyes of the distracted parent its many genuine pleasures, thereis much of sorrow and pain in bird-land to ahumane naturalist. Last spring I found a Greenfinchs nest with sixeggs ; it w^as in a well-concealed place, and I hopedwould escape molestation. A few days later aCuckoo placed her egg in the nest, at the sametime removing two of the Finchs eggs. After takingmuch trouble, I was able to photograph this nest:the Cuckoos egg is the one on
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectnatural, bookyear1901
