Music of the Wild 



men leave for them. Felled hollo\\' trees are splen- 

 did homes for the big black chickens of the woods 

 Pharaoh's — the vultures. These birds find such trees very 

 Chickens suitable, for in them are combined location, shel- 

 ter, and building material. The deep inner coat- 

 ing of decayed wood jars loose with the fall of 

 the tree, and the homing bird only has to turn on 

 the point of her breast a few times in it to make 

 a hollow, and she is ready for housekeeping. She 

 lays a pair of delicate pale-blue lusterless eggs, 

 much the color of a cuckoo's, but heavily mot- 

 tled, and splashed with dark chocolate. In these 

 circumstances the nest is very beautiful. The de- 

 cayed wood runs the whole color scheme, from 

 almost white through every shade of j^ellow, and 

 then begins on tans and exhausts them, and then 

 the browns. The big, speckled Idue eggs are 

 shaped like a hen's, but large as a turkey's. 



The young are out in a month, and are simply 

 comical little creatures, having the sharp, hooked 

 beak of the flesh-eater, a little old wrinkled face of 

 leathery apjiearance, and a body that expands to 

 three times its shell capacity on the first day of 

 emergence. Their dress is of snoA\y white, fine as 

 swan's down. They are so clumsy and helpless 

 they must remain many weeks developing in the 

 log before taking wing and sailing to the clouds. 

 The old birds are relatives of Pharaoh's chick- 

 ens of ancient Egypt, ^\here they were so bene- 



148 



