As the Rev. Mr. Stafford was walking in Glosop Dale, in the Peak of Derbyshire, he saw a cuckoo rise from its nest.  The nest was on the stump of a tree, that had been some time felled, among some chips that were in part turned grey, so as much to resemble the colour of the bird, in this nest were two young cuckoos:  tying a string about the leg of one of them, he pegged the other end of it to the ground, and very frequently for many days beheld the old cuckoo feed these her young, as he stood very near them.

The following extract of a Letter from the Rev. Mr. Wilmot, of Morley, near Derby, strengthens the truth of the fact above mentioned, of the cuckoo sometimes making a nest, and hatching her own young.

“In the beginning of July 1792, I was attending some labourers on my farm, when one of them said to me, “There is a bird’s nest upon one of the Coal-slack Hills; the bird is now sitting, and is exactly like a cuckoo.  They say that cuckoo’s never hatch their own eggs, otherwise I should have sworn it was one.”  He took me to the spot, it was in an open fallow ground; the bird was upon the nest, I stood and observed her some time, and was perfectly satisfied it was a cuckoo; I then put my hand towards her, and she almost let me touch her before she rose from the nest, which she appeared to quit with great uneasiness, skimming over the ground in the manner that a hen partridge does when disturbed from a new hatched brood, and went only to a thicket about forty or fifty yards from the nest; and continued there as long as I staid to observe her, which was not many minutes.  In the nest, which was barely a hole scratched out of the coal-slack in the manner of a plover’s nest, I observed three eggs, but did not touch them.  As I had labourers constantly at work in that field, I went thither every day, and always looked to see if the bird was there, but did not disturb her for seven or eight days, when I was tempted to drive her from the nest, and found two young ones, that appeared to have been hatched some days, but there was no appearance of the third egg.  I then mentioned this extraordinary circumstance (for such I thought it) to Mr. and Mrs. Holyoak of Bidford Grange, Warwickshire, and to Miss M. Willes, who were on a visit at my house, and who all went to see it.  Very lately I reminded Mr. Holyoak of it, who told me he had a perfect recollection of the whole, and that, considering it a curiosity, he walked to look at it several times, was perfectly satisfied as to its being a cuckoo, and thought her more attentive to her young, than any other bird he ever observed, having always found her brooding her young.  In about a week after I first saw the young ones, one of them was missing, and I rather suspected my plough-boys having taken it; though it might possibly have been taken by a hawk, some time when the old one was seeking food.  I never found her off her nest but once, and that was the last time I saw the remaining young one, when it was almost full feathered.  I then went from home for two or three days, and, when I returned, the young one was gone, which I take for granted had flown.  Though during this time I frequently saw cuckoos in the thicket I mention, I never observed any one, that I supposed to be the cock-bird, paired with this hen.”