108 IN BIRD LAND. 
the youngsters try to preen their feathers, they went 
about the performance so awkwardly. 
On the seventeenth of the month one of the nest- 
lings was missing, and no amount of looking for it 
in the thicket revealed any clew to its whereabouts. 
None of the remaining birds were ready to fly. 
Two days later they were still in the nest, although 
they had grown considerably since my last visit, so 
that one of them was almost crowded out of the 
circular trundle-bed. I could not resist the temp- 
tation to lift it in my hand, just to see how pretty 
it was and how it would act. It uttered a sharp 
cry of alarm, and sprang from my hand; but its 
wings were still so weak that it merely fluttered in 
an oblique direction to the ground. ‘The third time 
I caught it, it sat contentedly on my palm, and 
allowed me to stroke its back, looking up at its 
captor with mingled wonder and trustfulness. 
On the heads of all the nestlings a fine down pro- 
truded up through and above the feathers. ‘The 
birds looked very knowingly out of their small coal- 
black eyes, but the cunning little things obstinately 
refused to open their mouths for me, entice them 
as I would; however, when I moved away some 
distance, and their mamma came with a tempting 
morsel, they sprang up instantly and gulped it down. 
Not so very unsophisticated, after all, for mere bant- 
lings! On the morning of the twenty-sixth all the 
young finches had left the nest, and were perched in 
the bushes near by. I contrived to catch one of them 
