CONDUCT OF BIRDS IN THE NEST. 333 



for several days and nights. The young remained 

 blind until February 28th, and flew in the morn- 

 ing of March 7th, without previous practice, as 

 strong and swiftly as the mother, taking their first 

 dart from the nest to a tree about twenty yards' 

 distant." We are not aware that any similar 

 instance of maternal anxiety and ingenuity as that 

 which led to the performance of this most inte- 

 resting action of raising the walls of the nest, has 

 been related of any other bird. 



The conduct of young birds in the nest is in 

 general tolerably amicable. The strongest, how- 

 ever, get most. The most prominent example of 

 this superiority of might over right is that of the 

 cuckoo, whose unkindness toward its poor little 

 foster-brothers and sisters has been before narrated. 

 Since some question has been raised by one or two 

 naturalists, as to the accuracy of Dr. Jenner's 

 account of this proceeding on the part of the young 

 cuckoo, it may be useful to quote a more recent 

 observation made by Mr. Blackwall, of Manches- 

 ter. " On the 30th of June, 1823," he writes, 

 (i I took the nest of a meadow-pipit, containing a 

 young cuckoo, which was disengaged from the 

 egg on the 28th of the same month ; and support- 



