Introductory 
yellow-billed cuckoo’s nest containing two eggs, which showed 
that incubation was far advanced. It was three days before I had 
another chance to visit the nest. During this interval the young 
had hatched, and when | saw them they were little naked objects 
with but the first beginnings of pin feathers showing. Unfortu- 
nately, | did not know their exact age (as you can see, notes should 
be exact down to days and hours), but as I visited them day by 
day I noticed how the feathers grew. Instead of breaking through 
the envelopes gradually, as do the feathers of other birds, the little 
cuckoo’s feathers remained sheathed and finely pointed until the 
day before the birds left the nest. Then in twenty-four hours 
every envelope burst, and the bird was completely feathered, 
with no trace of the sheathing except at the base of the tail. 
Had I taken the eggs I should not have been able to note this 
fact (which I have not been able to find any record of in the 
books) or to secure the amusing photograph which is reproduced 
further on. 
While I deprecate the taking of eggs as being in most cases 
entirely unnecessary, I should strongly advise both boys and girls 
to /ook for nests. It will be a means of developing a love of 
nature in one of its most attractive forms, and it will stimulate 
the powers of observation and add to the knowledge of birds in 
striking degree. 
The love of nature in any form is an acquisition well worth 
striving for. Besides adding enormously to one’s interest in a 
walk, whether on the high road or along the woodland paths, it is 
a resource which would do a great deal towards banishing that 
silly phrase, ‘‘I wish I had something to do.” How often do we 
hear people say that, even when living in the country where wild 
life in its thousands of different phases exists all around them, un- 
noticed by all except the very few who are devoting themselves to 
some particular study. Unfortunately the power of observation 
is lacking in most of us who have not been trained to it—we look 
without seeing. Mr. Burroughs says that ‘‘some people seem 
born with eyes in their heads, and others with buttons or painted 
marbles, and no amount of science can make the one equal to the 
other in the art of seeing things.” But even those who by ill- 
fortune are born without keen eyes can by constant practice cul- 
tivate the faculty of observing to a surprising degree. 
That so little is known about the common birds is a good il- 
6 
