Vol -,™ V ] Batliss, The Yellow-billed Cuckoo. 163 



sleeping with head laid flat before him like an alligator, and occa- 

 sionally moving it from side to side in serpent-like manner; — 

 utterly ugly except his mouth which when wide open, was cup- 

 shaped and red, with cream-colored knobs in it, making it look like 

 a red flower with sessile yellowish stamens. The legs were black, 

 the toes were black, two of them standing forward, two back, like 

 the toes of a woodpecker. The wings were little flat, crooked 

 sticks such as might be sawed out of a black shingle; and he let 

 them hang down like legs, even using them to prop himself up, 

 and two or three times fairly standing on "all fours." When he 

 ate he sat up as straight as a Penguin, resting on the back part of 

 his body, tarsi flat out in front of him and toes clutching the flannel 

 cloth in the bottom of his box, to balance himself. When he raised 

 his head there was a perpendicular line from the tip of his bill 

 down the under part of his body to the box in which he sat. 



After three days he began to fold his wings to his sides and now 

 and then to stretch and finally to flap them. The hissing gradually 

 merged toward the hungry cry of young birds when being fed. 

 The cilise on the edges of his wings and tail became bristles and then 

 tiny white-tipped feather-cases ; and from his chin down each side of 

 his bare under body, curving upward to the tail, came three or four 

 overlapping rows of minute white quills or feather cases, making 

 him look when sitting up as if he had on a cut-away coat. These 

 began to show Aug. 3, when he was four, possibly five days old. 

 He uttered his little quirt and the buzzing sound without opening 

 his mouth. The former he ceased to make on Aug. 4 and 5, but the 

 latter became louder and was uttered when he ate and whenever 

 his box was touched, whether he raised his head or not. 



He lacked regurgitated food and brooding, and every morning 

 was^so dumpish that he seemed about to die. But toward night he 

 became as lively and as hungry as ever. Yet he was not thriving 

 as well as the one in the nest and it was my intention to exchange 

 the two; — but he circumvented me. 



At first he was fed on large caterpillars from a laurel oak; later 

 on berries and the larva? from cabbages. He did not seem to relish 

 water or the white of egg and worked his bill and his black tipped 

 tongue as if trying to spit it out. Flies were his specialty, so I 

 secured a quantity that had been scalded and emptied out of a trap. 



