nest of the birds whose eggs are similar to their own, to deposit their eggs in, or whether a Cuckoo hatched and reared by one foster-parent would be likely to select the nest of the same species to deposit its own eggs in; the whole matter has been very fully discussed in several publications, both English and German; and Mr. Dresser has given a very full _resumé_ of the various arguments in his 'Birds of Europe'; and whilst fully admitting the great variation in the colour of the Cuckoos' eggs, he does not seem to think that any particular care is taken by the parent Cuckoo to select foster-parents whose eggs are similar in colour to its own; and the instances cited seem to bear out this opinion, with which, as far as my small experience goes, I quite agree. Whilst on the subject of Cuckoos I may mention, for the information of such of my Guernsey readers who are not ornithologists, and therefore not well acquainted with the fact, the peculiar state of plumage in which the female Cuckoo occasionally returns northward in her second summer; I mean the dull reddish plumage barred with brown, extremely like that of the female Kestrel: in this plumage she occasionally returns in her second year and breeds; but when this is changed for the more general plumage I am unable to state for certain, but probably after the second autumnal moult. The changes of plumage in the Cuckoo, however, appear to be rather irregular, as I have one killed in June nearly in the normal plumage, but with many of the old feathers left, which have a very Kestrel-like appearance, being redder than the ordinary plumage of the young bird; some of the tail-feathers, however, have more the appearance of the ordinary tail-feathers of the young Cuckoo soon after the tail has reached its full growth: the moult in this bird must have been very irregular, as it was not completed in June, when, as a rule, it would have been in full plumage, unless, as may possibly be the case, this bird was the produce of a second laying during the southern migration, and consequently, instead of a year, be only about six months old. This, however, is not a very common state of plumage; but it is by no means uncommon to find a Cuckoo in May or June with a good deal of rusty reddish barred with brown, forming a sort of collar on the breast. I merely mention these rather abnormal changes of plumage, as they may be interesting to any of my Guernsey readers into whose hands a Cuckoo may fall in a state of change and prove a puzzle as to its identity. The Cuckoo departs from the Channel Islands much about the same time that it does from England on its southern migration in August or September. Occasionally, however, this southern migration during the winter seems to be doubted, as a clerical friend of mine once told me that a brother clergyman, a well educated and even a learned man, told him, when talking about Cuckoos and what became of them in