Evening Post. SATURDAY, AUGUST 11, 1934. THE MYSTERY OF THE CUCKOO

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 36, 11 August 1934, Page 8

Evening Post. SATURDAY, AUGUST 11, 1934. THE MYSTERY OF THE CUCKOO

It was remarked by Dr. Eugene Rey at Leipzig who in 1892 published the results of his investigations of the cuckoo problem extending over many years that "it is only by accident that so shy and cautious a bird as the cuckoo allows itself to be spied upon in "its doings." Twenty-five years later a similar opinion was expressed by a British naturalist. Writing in the "Ibis" of April, 1917, Major R. F. Meiklejohn said that if the problem was ever to be solved "it must be by a combination ; of lucky chances, and by carefully1 piecing (together, as in a detective mystery, the various clues which come into our possession." It was in accordance both with the letier of these prophecies and wilh the spirit of those punning myths in which primitive man seems to have delighted that the immense advance towards a solution of the problem which was recorded five years later was made by Chance. There was actually less of the fortuitous about the results recorded by Mr. Edgar Chance iir the book on "The Cuckoo's Secret" which he published in 1922 than, for instance, in a good many astronomical discoveries. His results were the reward of a daily watch which he had kept on the bird with wonderful pertinacity and ingenuity over a period of four years. ,Iv is "written, says Bacon iv his essay "Of Fortune," that Tiinotheus the Athenian after ho had, in the Account he gave to the Stato of his Government, often interlaced this Speech: And in this Fortune had no Part; never prospered in any Thing lie undertooke afterwards.

It was not for Mr. Chance to court disaster by such ill-omened arrogance, but what he could not say himself it is possible for others to say for him. t At the beginning of Mr. Chance's four years' vigil it does not even seem to have been certain whether the hen cuckoo "cucked," and there were all sorts of doubts about her egg-laying habits. At the end of the four years he' had the elusive creature so well in hand that he was able to write as follows :-r-

"Only by. accident"—in 1892; but now within thirty!years of Roy's statement, wo havo acquired such a control over the actions of a cuckoo, that on many occasions, after prophesying the day and hour when sho would lay, and the very nest in which she would deposit her egg, wo have seen the forecast accurately fulfilled.

By that time, after the bird had laid her tenth egg for the season, Mr. Chance was able to take his friends out to see her lay the eleventh. By arranging a series of dummy nests he also succeeded in proving that she could lay 21 eggs in a season and in timing the interval between the eggs. His "hide" was now. within four feet of the nest! The filming of some of the cuckoo's secrets had become a simple matter. Of one of these pictures Mr. Chance writes:

A remarkable feature, seen very cjearly on the film, was that the young cuckoo actually ejected the addled egg whilst the female rnoadow plj)it was on the nest. She v took no apparent notice; on the contrary, it really looked as if she lifted herself up to allow the cuckoo more scope- for Ms'exertions.

"The cold-blooded unconcern of the mother pipit" when one of her own children was being thrown out was also recorded.

Research along the lines pioneered by Mr. Chance has of course been active during the twelve years which havo passed since the publication of his book, and the results to date are summarised by Mr. B. R. 'I-'erry in an article on "The Mystery of the Cuckoo" in the July "Contemporary Review." The only complaint we have to make about a valuable piece of work is that neither Mr. Chance's name nor those of any of the other investigators are mentioned, though the reader of his book can recognise his handiwork throughout. Some of the particulars that Mr. Perry gives of the cuckoo's egg-laying are positively uncanny. From observation posts within her territory—-a strip about a mile in circumference—she watches her intended victims building their nests, and during the five or six days that it takes a pair of them to complete the work and lay an egg or two her own maternal instincts are apparently stimulated to the laying point. Unlike most other birds, she does not lay in the early morning because she likes plenty of time to "concentrate" on the nest she has selected for the day's egg, and an early hour might not allow her daylight enough for the purpose. - When the cuckoo is ready she flies silently to die observation post commanding a view of the nest.

There, stretchod along ii bough, almost liko a nightjar, writes Mi1. Perry, sho perches motionless for a period, varying from half au hour to two and a half hours, gazing intently at the selected nest. This concentration appears in most cases to cause uneasiness among the future fosterers, who continually mob her without distracting her attention in tho slightost. On other occasions the cock fosterer actually invites her to lay, flying up and then loading the way down to tho nest, or oven offering her a grub! . . . At length she glides openly to tho nest, usually sorao soventy or eighty yards away, and alights by its side. She usually makes several of those preparatory flights before actually entering the nest, accompanied by the cock fosterer. .. . Having found the nest, in this case a meadow pipit's, sho dives in head first. Eemoviug tho egg nearest to tho entrance, sho lays her own in its place, holding tho stolen egg in her beak meanwhile. While she is laying, tlm female fosterer, who miters with her, continues +o buffet her »v-

coasiugly. The cuckoo only requires from eight to twolve seconds in which to lay, and then, backing out of 'the nest, flies oft' to a different tree with the stolen egg still in her beak. Thereshe "bubbles" with satisfaction and eats the egg. Then, calling- the male cuckoos, she hies off to feed.

One of the questions suggested by this astonishing procedure is, as Mr. Perry says, "whether the victim desires the patronage of the cuckoo or not." From the erratic behaviour of the fosterers both before and during the process of laying ho infers that "there is evidently a certain amount of ' fascination' or hypnptism by the cuckoo, possibly achieved during the preparatory period of concentration." Mr. Chance takes a similar view.

With one's Zeiss glasses,' he writes— I wish there were glasses made in England like them!—focused on the female cuckoo sitting motionless in a tree on observation bent, one could at times gather the impression that she had some sort of mesmeric effect upon her. intended victims. For one or both of the pair of meadow pipits upon which she was concentrating her attention would grow uneasy, leave the vicinity of the nest, and fly right up to her, fuss nervously round her, and often make feeble attempts as though to attack her. , :

Mr. Perry even mentions as certified by unimpeachable authority "that the meadow pipit has been observed to throw out its own eggs after a cuckoo's egg has been laid iii

its nest!"

_ ft seems impossible, he says, that the sitting fosterer should ignore licr dying lledglings.—she must realise that they arc hers —unless her new role has been in soiuo measure impressed upon her. But this would seem to be ono of those still inexplicable mysteries to (sic) which there is no satisfactory solution. On this last point we must surely all agree with Mr. Perry. In his openingparagraph he says that through the labours of the lasi thirty years "the cuckoo's life with i'ls plethora of attendant problems is almost quite revealed." That ."almost quite" covers a very wide margin of darkness which die light of science has not penetrated and probably never will. The -faith of White of Selborne, who refers to!"the vast disproportioned size" of the cuckoo's abnormally small egg and did not know whether more than one is laid in a season, is here just as good a guide as the baffled man of science.

Should it further appear, says White, that this simple bird, when divested iof that natural "storgo" [affection] that seems to raise the kind in geuoral above themselves, and inspire them with extraordinary degrees of cunning and address, may bo still endued with a more enlarged facility of discerning what species aro suitable and congenerous nursing 'mothers for its disregarded eggs and young, and may deposit them only under their care, this would be adding wonder to wonder, and instancing, in a fresh manner, that the methods of Providence 'are not subjected to any mode or rule, but > astonish us in new lights and in various and changeable appearances.