60 TALKS ABOUT BIRDS 



sitting at once, some of the young are hatched 

 out long before the others, and so the brood 

 are of various ages, and there may even be 

 eggs and well-grown young in the nest at the 

 same time. Here again is a cuckoo custom 

 which is strange ; for though some other 

 birds, such as the barn-owl, also bring up 

 their family in this straggling way instead of 

 waiting till they have a full set of eggs and 

 hatching them all at once, the custom is not a 

 common one in the bird world, as every one 

 knows who has been bird's-nesting. 



Indeed, if any one wants to take up a 

 natural history hobby that would give plenty 

 of employment for a life -time, they would 

 find one in the study of the cuckoos ; our own 

 bird would give them plenty of puzzles to 

 work out, and if they kept in aviaries the few 

 foreign cuckoos they would be able to obtain, 

 and read all that is written about cuckoos in 

 various countries, they would at last be able 

 to write a most interesting book. 



Just as, if the gulls which are persecuted by 

 the robber skuas in our seas were to go south 

 they would be attended to by the frigate- 

 bird, so any of our little birds which wanted 



