FRIENDS IN FEATHERS 



will sit in any position, and look perfect pictures of trust and 

 confidence. I always carry food with me, so if I am work- 

 ing long with young birds, and they grow hungry, as they do 

 with amazing rapidity, with a little paddle I feed them a few 

 bites. I give baby Cuckoos the yolk of hard-boiled egg. When 

 feeding them I moisten the egg with saliva. They are eager for 

 it and will pose indefinitely if they have a bite once in a while. 



With Cuckoos the whole process of family affairs is individual. 

 They can confide four and five nestlings to a piece of architecture 

 more rickety than a Dove's nest. The mother is erratic about 

 her laying, but begins incubation with the first egg. As a result 

 the brood drags along, and before the last of the first clutch is 

 out of the nest, eggs for the second are deposited. In any event, 

 the babies leave, one a day. The difference in their size and 

 feathering is surprising. I have seen nests containing a brood 

 with one ready to fly, one half-feathered, one covered with 

 sheathed feathers, and a freshly laid egg. 



Until the day of quitting the nest Cuckoo babies are the 

 funniest little fellows imaginable. Their bodies are covered with 

 a tough leathery black skin, while each coming feather is incased 

 in a black, pointed shield. This gives them the appearance of 

 porcupines. If you touch the nest at that stage they draw 

 back, erect those spines and cry a reedy whine of a cry that 

 is distressing. They know they have no business being touched 

 in that condition. When the hour to leave the nest begins to 

 approach, in a short time these shields burst and the small 

 leathery black bird becomes a thing of delicately shaded silken 

 attire and assured tone of voice. 



Once this sudden emerging of the Cuckoo baby appealed 

 to me as so comical that I made a series from a pair of nestlings 

 to illustrate it. The birds hatched in a thorn thicket on the 

 river-bank on Mr. Black's lease. Two had left the nest and we 



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