188 IN BIRD LAND. 
the cuckoo, is a problem of bird school-life that 
I must leave for solution to wiser heads. 
Having gone from the nest, the young bird has 
not yet learned all about the art of flying; no, 
indeed! He must become perfect by practice. 
Many a blunder will he make. At first he can- 
not always nicely calculate the distance to the twig 
that he has in view, and so he fails to give himself 
the proper propulsive force; he misses his footing 
by going too far, or not far enough, and then where 
he will alight is a question of what he happens to 
strike first. Probably a wild, desperate scramble will 
ensue, which ends only when the youthful novice has 
fallen plump upon the ground. He may be very 
much alarmed; but as soon as he recovers his 
breath, his courage rises, and he tries again. 
Although the young birds have the whole world 
for their larder, with victuals just to their taste 
constantly at their elbow, they must learn even the 
art of eating, and, until they do so, they demand that 
their parents be their caterers. For several weeks 
after they have passed the first term of school-life, 
they will still sit on a limb, open their mouths, 
twinkle their wings, and allow their patient victual- 
lers to thrust morsel after morsel down their 
throats. My opinion is that the patience of their 
parents wears out after a time, and they leave 
the overgrown youngster to paddle for himself. 
How proud he must be of the exploit when he 
catches his first insect and successfully stows it away 
in his maw! In a deep, quiet glen I watched a 
