1 7 8 



Wild Birds 



at Cairo, sitting on the grass in the blaze of an African sun, with 

 full-spread wings, in the attitude depicted on the Egyptian 

 tombs, when shade in plenty was close at hand. 



Again, at Lucerne, Switzerland, on a hot day in July, I 

 saw a female Thrush (Merula atra), the first cousin of the 

 American Robin, lie stretched out in the sun, on a bare patch of 

 earth in a garden, not far from its nest, with wings spread and 



Fig. 109. The earliest pictures of the home-life of birds. Detail from hunt- 

 ing scene in marshes on the Nile, from the tomb of Mereruka, at Sakkara, 

 Egypt, over 4000 years old. Birds are nesting in the papyrus reeds, and a 

 pair are defending their young from the threatened attack of a mongoose. 

 Notice that the birds sit on their saucer-shaped nests, and "spread " as they 

 do when taking a sun-bath. 



feathers on end, for two or three minutes at a time, and then go 

 to a branch and preen. This was repeated four times in succes- 

 sion, the sun-bath lasting from two to three minutes each time, 

 and the bird always going to precisely the same spot. The same 

 act was, -moreover, observed on successive days. It is there- 

 fore suggested that the spreading is a typical reflex (see Chapter 

 XIII.), or motor response to heat, and that it is not necessarily 

 a signal of distress. The return to the same place day after day 

 to sun or dust the feathers, or to favorite perches to preen or 



