PARASITIC CUCKOOS
Sir, — In regard to the article on the shining cuckoo in your issue oi September 24 last I would like to say that the mysteiy of how these parasitic cuckoos get their eggs into nests that are inaccessible was solved by me in 1936 — vide S'tuart Baker's "Cuckoo Problems" and other publications of that period. "Cucukus Canoru Bakeri" was seen to lay its eggs in the nest entrance. There is, so far as I know, no evidence that any parasitic cuckoo lays its eggs on the ground and tncn takes it up in its bill to "deposlt" it in the nest it cannot get in to lay. There are about 177 dilferent species of cuckoos. It should not be difficult to witness the laying of the shining cuckoo if the evidence already recorded in the Cucukus Grouo is | studied and its lessons applied. The shining cuckoo^ like other fully developed parasitic cuckoos, is certainly promiscuous in sex, and that would appear to be the object of the whole adventure into brood-parasitisro. — I am, etc.,
T. R.
LIVESAY,
Scanell Street, Taupo. 26/9/52. [Bird watchers, please note. — Ed.]
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Bibliographic details
Taupo Times, Volume I, Issue 38, 1 October 1952, Page 5
Word Count
188PARASITIC CUCKOOS Taupo Times, Volume I, Issue 38, 1 October 1952, Page 5
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