FIELD AND STUDY 



The novel, the extraordinary, the characteristic, 

 the significant, always interest us. The human bore 

 is a person who has no conception of what consti- 

 tutes the interesting; he or she pours out his own 

 private experiences upon us as if they were of the 

 same interest to us as to him. How prone we are to 

 think our special ailments are of universal interest, 

 but how rarely is this the case ! 



One afternoon two cuckoos, flying side by side, 

 passed my door. In the morning they passed again 

 in the same way and going in the same direction. 

 I became interested. I said, This means business. 

 Following the course they took, I went straight to 

 a clump of red-thorn trees a hundred yards distant, 

 and there was the nest, with young more than half- 

 grown. They were black-billed cuckoos. The mother 

 bird chided me in that harsh, guttural, staccato note 

 of hers, and kept her place on a branch near the 

 nest. One of the three young got out of the rude 

 nest and perched on a twig, holding its head or neck 

 nearly vertical. Its pronounced stubbly quills and 

 peculiar attitude gave it an unbirdhke look. The 

 cuckoos seem to time their nesting with that of the 

 tent-caterpillars upon which they feed. As the sup- 

 ply of these orchard pests, and many other similar 

 pests, had been nearly exterminated by the cold, 

 wet May of the previous year (1917), it would have 

 been very interesting to know how the birds made 



196 



