36 LOCUSTS AND WILD HONEY 



lie had thrown it out of his mouth. His ' best hold ' 

 was ants. He never was surprised at anything, and 

 never was afraid of anything. He would drive the 

 turkey gobbler and the rooster. He would advance 

 upon them holding one wing up as high as possible, 

 as if to strike with it, and shuffle along the ground 

 toward them, scolding all the while in a harsh voice. 

 I feared at first that they might kill him, but I soon 

 found that he was able to take care of himself. I 

 would turn over stones and dig into ant-hills for him, 

 and he would lick up the ants so fast that a stream 

 of them seemed going into his mouth unceasingly. 

 I kept him till late in the fall, when he disappeared, 

 probably going south, and I never saw him again." 

 My correspondent also sends me some interesting 

 observations about the cuckoo. He says a large 

 gooseberry-bush standing in the border of an old 

 hedge-row, in the midst of open fields, and not far 

 from his house, was occupied by a pair of cuckoos 

 for two seasons in succession, and, after an interval 

 of a year, for two seasons more. This gave him a 

 good chance to observe them. He says the mother 

 bird lays a single egg, and sits upon it a number of 

 days before laying the second, so that he has seen 

 one young bird nearly grown, a second just hatched, 

 and a whole egg all in the nest at once. " So far 

 as I have seen, this is the settled practice, — the 

 young leaving the nest one at a time to the number 

 of six or eight. The young have quite the look of 

 the young of the dove in many respects. When 

 nearly grown they are covered with long blue pin- 



