76 BULLETIN 17 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



blueberry bush, looking for a nest, when I discovered, to my surprise, 

 a fledgling black-billed cuckoo, squatting on a twig about 6 feet from 

 the ground. The little bird, which really was not able to fly, was 

 squatting on a limb, just as little birds ordinarily do ; his wing feath- 

 ers were fairly well developed, but his tail was only about a quarter 

 of an inch long. When I parted the branches a trifle, so that we 

 could see him better, and finding out that he was discovered, he 

 promptly assumed an almost perpendicular position, with his neck 

 stretched out almost unbelievably and his bill almost straight in the 

 air; and there he sat, immovable, with his bill in the air like a bit- 

 tern, only oscillating a trifle when the branch on which he was sitting 

 was disturbed a little by the breeze. 



"My youngest son, Jack, being interested in the peculiarities of 

 cuckoos' feet, attempted to pick him off the limb; the little bird 

 fluttered to the ground, where he picked him up. Wlien we had duly 

 examined and discussed the arrangement of his toes, Jack endeavored 

 to put the little fellow back exactly where he had been when we 

 first disturbed him. Then, as he endeavored to replace him on the 

 limb, he suddenly went limp and, apparently, passed out in his hand, 

 frightened to death, as I supposed. He was perfectly limp and my 

 impression is that his eyes were closed. Jack finally, in trying to 

 get him to stay on the limb, hung him across the limb by the neck, 

 with his head across one side and his body down the other side. 

 Just then there came a little breeze, the body dropped, and that 

 little bird simply scuttled in under the ferns. It was the most aston- 

 ishing performance that I ever witnessed, first the stake-driver 

 attitude, as a protective position, and then playing dead." 



Plumages. — Professor Herrick (1935) says of the newly-hatched 

 young cuckoo: "Although most birds emerge from the shell wet 

 with the amniotic fluid, the cuckoo just mentioned came out quite 

 dry. It was two and one-half inches long and weighed less than a 

 quarter of an ounce (or 7.4 grams). Its skin was coal-black, sparsely 

 sprinkled with sharply contrasting snow-white 'hairs' — in reality 

 the feather-tubes of a rudimentary down which never unfolds. These 

 primitive feather-tubes are later pushed out by those of the ju venal 

 contour feathers and for about a week are borne upon their tips, 

 thus giving them a peculiar flagellate appearance." 



When about six days old, the young cuckoo "bristles like the 

 fretful porcupine in every feather-tract"; these bristles are the 

 feather-tubes of the juvenal plumage, referred to above. At about 

 this age, the young bird begins the "combing" process, by which 

 the sheaths of these feather tubes are removed, as described above, 

 and a marvelous change begins to take place in a remarkably short 

 time, as the sheaths are removed and fall in a shower in and about 



