WHAT I HAVE DOXE WITH BIRDS 



existed. All you have to do to make a study of them any way you 

 can think of is to hold out your hand, they will climb on, and 

 place them on a branch face or back to the camera. They will 

 sit any way, and look perfect pictures of trust and confidence 

 while they do it. I always carry food about with me, and if I am 

 working 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 crazy for it 

 and will pose indefinitely if they get 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 strings along, and before the last of the first clutch is out of 

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

 babies leave one a day, and the difference in their size and feather- 

 ing 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. 



Up to the day of leaving the nest Cuckoo babies are the fun- 

 niest little fellows imaginable. Their bodies are covered with a 

 tough leathery black skin, and each coming feather is incased in a 

 black-pointed shield. This gives them the appearance of little 

 porcupines. If you touch the nest at that stage they crawfish, 

 erect those spines and cry, a reedy little 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 ap- 

 proach, all in a twinkling these shields burst and the leathery little 

 Mack bird becomes a thing of delicately-shaded silken attire and 

 assured tone of voice. 



Once this sudden emerging of the Cuckoo baby struck me 



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