One of the strangest facts in the strange history of this bird is that its egg is not laid in the nest in which it is found, but is carried by the cuckoo in her bill and placed there. It is very small for so large a bird, although much larger, in most cases, than the eggs it is placed with, as its favourite nests in this country are all of small birds--the hedge-sparrow, reed-warbler, pied wagtail, and meadow-pipit. The eggs are very variable, being dull greenish or dull reddish grey, with spots and mottlings of a deeper shade. In some instances the cuckoo’s egg resembles in colour the eggs it is placed with, and it is thought by some naturalists that the female cuckoo invariably deposits her eggs in the nests of one species. As a rule, only one egg is laid in a nest, and a few days after the eggs are hatched the young cuckoo gets rid of his foster-brothers by getting them on to his back, which is broad and hollow, and throwing them over the side of the nest. If any unhatched eggs remain in the nest, he gets rid of them in the same way. The food of the cuckoo is exclusively insectivorous, and consists in large part of hairy caterpillars, which most birds refuse to touch. The indigestible portions of the food he swallows are cast up in small pellets. By August the old birds take their departure; the young migrate one to two months later. * * * * * No fewer than three exotic cuckoos have been placed on the list of British birds. Two of these are American species: the yellow-billed cuckoo (_Coccyzus americanus_) and the black-billed cuckoo (_C. erythrophthalmus_). The third is the great spotted cuckoo (_Coccystes glandarius_), an African species, which visits Spain in summer, and, like our bird, is parasitical, but has the habit of depositing its eggs in the nests of various species of the crow family. Barn-Owl. Strix flammea. Beak yellowish white; upper parts light tawny yellow minutely variegated with brown, grey, and white; face and lower plumage white, the feathers of the margin tipped with brown. Length, fourteen inches. * * * * *