104 Wild Birds 



scenes, in which the objects are usually in rapid motion, cannot 

 be obtained at such close range. 



On the first day it required forty minutes to restore perfect 

 confidence, before the affairs of the nest were conducted with 

 their usual regularity. The young raised their heads aloft and 

 called loudly for attention, or hung drowsily over the brim of the 

 nest. At this time their skin was dotted with the fine rapidly 

 growing feathers, and the wing-quills looked like slender paint 

 brushes, having just burst the tips of the cylindrical horny 

 tubes in which they grow. 



The old birds examined the situation carefully. Their 

 mournful piort ! piort ! was heard again and again, the male 

 answering his mate as she deliberately approached the nest. 

 After advancing many times, and turning back as often through 

 fear or distrust, the mother hopped up briskly with a bee in her 

 beak. Her instinct to care for her young was stronger than the 

 male's, and she almost invariably approached in the same way, 

 by the path of the twig in the fork of which hung the nest. A 

 smaller division in the fork gave off a still smaller branch close 

 to the nest, and upon this the birds always perched, and thus 

 stood directly over their brood. Any vibration of the nest, as 

 when the feet of the old bird touched the main stem to which 

 it was fixed, or any sound above or below, electrified the young, 

 and up popped their heads like two jacks in a box. With 

 mouths wide agape, they would clamor and quaver, expressing 

 their emotions not only by the vibration of the wings but by 

 the shaking of the whole body. But the young at this tender 

 age are unable to discriminate with any exactness. The quiver- 

 ing of a leaf, or the stirring of a twig close at hand, a puff of wind, 

 the nutter of a wing or the voice of any passing bird would 

 throw them into the same state of excitement. But this was 

 only for a moment. Their heads would again drop listlessly 

 over the wall of the nest, and with open mouths they would 

 doze in the sunshine. Something would then suddenly arouse 

 them, when they would instinctively go to preening themselves 

 just like old birds, although they had at this time no feathers 

 which needed this attention. 



