nest of sticks—placed on the boughs of a tree overhanging 
the water. As soon as hatched he begins to climb about the 
branches. Should he fall, by some mischance, into the water, 
he promptly swims to the bank ; and by the aid of his long 
first finger, and wing-claws, and his huge feet, soon climbs 
back. But the most wonderful part of his story is yet to 
come. 
So long as these youngsters can only scramble about they 
are in constant jeopardy. A wing-surface at least big enough 
to break the force of a fall is an urgent necessity. And so 
the growth of the quill-feathers is, so to speak, pushed forward 
with all possible speed. But if all the feathers grew at the 
same rate, there would speedily come a time when the outer- 
most feathers would make the claw at the end of the finger 
useless, while the wing-surface, as a whole, would be insuffi- 
cient. To obviate this difficulty, the development of the 
outermost feathers is held in abeyance till the inner feathers 
of the hand, and the outermost of the forearm, have grown big 
enough to suffice to break the force of the fall. As soon as 
this stage is arrived at, the outermost quills, whose growth 
has been held in abeyance, rapidly develop; the finger 
decreases in length, and its claw disappears, while that of the 
thumb soon follows suit. And thus it comes about that 
the hand, in the nestling, is relatively much longer than in 
the adult. But in its mid-period it may be taken to represent 
255 
