THE ORNITHOLOGIST AND BOTANIST. 



67 



with, now procure the leaves that you 

 wish to use. They must be perfectly 

 fresh and free from dust and moisture. 



First, take out a small quantity of the 

 ink, and with the knife spread as evenly 

 as possible upon the glass. Then take 

 your pad and press it down lightly upon 

 the inked surface, lifting, and again 

 pressing until the ink is . evenly dis- 

 tributed upon the pad. Now, take your 

 leaf and place it face, or right side, 

 downward on a piece of folded news- 

 paper and press the inked pad down on 

 the under side of the leaf, which is now, 

 of course, lying upward, repeating the 

 process until the leaf is sufficiently 

 covered with the ink. Next, carefully 

 place the leaf, inked side down, in the 

 center of the piece of paper you have 

 prepared for the album ; on this lay a 

 piece of common yellow wrapping paper 

 or any paper that is not too stiff and 

 thick, and gently rub the finger all over 

 the covered leaf. You will then find an 

 exact impress of the fresh, green leaf, 

 showing all its delicate veins and fibers. 



After pasting in the album, write 

 under each leaf the name of the plant 

 from which it is taken, place where 

 found, date and other memoranda 

 which you may have. 



As' it is possible to make more than 

 one or two impressions from each leaf, 

 one can make copies for exchage pur- 

 poses of extra large leaves, or any 

 which may be found of odd and rare 

 shapes. 



NESTING HABITS OF THE CUCKOO. 



BY S. E. KENNEDY, MOOSUP VALLEY, R. I. 



I WAS much interested in an observa- 

 tion made by my little daughter, about 

 June 1st. Upon a bush about three feet 

 from the ground, she found the nest of 

 a black-billed cuckoo, containing two 

 eggs and two young bii ds of different 

 ages. Never having heard of any pe- 

 culiarity in the nesting habits of the 



cuckoo, I was inclined to think that she 

 might possibly have made some mistake, 

 when she convinced me by reading the 

 following extract from Wilson Flagg's 

 "A Year with the Birds." 



" It is remarkable that the American 

 cuckoo, though a faithful and devoted 

 parent, should have certain peculiar 

 habits connected with laying and hatch- 

 ing, that bear some evidence that the 

 European and American species have a 

 common derivation. The habit of the 

 European bird of dropping its eggs into 

 other birds' nests is probably connected 

 with, continued laying, extended to a 

 greater length of tim_i than other birds. 



The same fertility has been observed 

 in American cuckoos. Mr. Audubon 

 mentioned the peculiar habit of these 

 birds of laying fresh eggs and hatching 

 them successively. Thus it would seem 

 that the last laid eggs were hatched by 

 the involuntary brooding of the young 

 which had not left the nest." 



He then goes on to quote from Dr. 

 Brewer, who, he says, "has repeatedly 

 found in a nest three young and two 

 eggs, one of the latter nearly fresh, one 

 with the embrj^o half developed, while 

 of the young birds, one would be just 

 out of the shell, one half fledged, and 

 one just ready to fly. Subsequent ob- 

 servations in successive seasons led to 

 the conviction that both the yellow-billed 

 and the black-billed cuckoo share in 

 these peculiarities, and that it is a gen- 

 eral, but not a universal practice. 



To any person who has all his senses 

 about him, a quiet walk along not more 

 than ten or twenty miles of road a day, 

 is the most amusing of all traveling ; 

 and all traveling becomes dull in exact 

 proportion to its rapidity. — Ruskin. 



The lover of Nature is he vv^hose in- 

 ward and outward senses are still truly 

 adjusted to each other; who has retained 

 the spirit of infancy even into the era 

 of manhood. — Emerson. 



■ M l " I I J. 



