BIRD CRADLES. I11 
the tree the bird flew to the neighboring branches, uttering an 
occasional hoarse croak in its familiar tone, obedient, as it were, 
to a periodic pumping stroke of the long tail. I found the nest 
occupied by a single fledgling, and was moved to congratulate 
the remnant for having managed to reach his pin-feather days 
without tumbling out of bed, which I fancied must have been 
the fate of his presumably former bedfellows, for the edge of 
the open pile of sticks was lower than the centre whereon he 
rested. 
Examples of this sort of nest-building are happily not com- 
mon, and in the case of this bird, a near congener to the Euro- 
pean cuckoo, though entirely without its parasitic habits, it would 
seem to have a somewhat parallel sin of shiftlessness. In all the 
four nests of this bird which I have found, this contributory neg- 
ligence towards the destruction of its offspring has been manifest. 
My fancy has sometimes suggested the query whether this may 
not be an example of the process of evolution from a lower para- 
sitical to a higher state, the dawning intelligence in the art of 
nest-building. 
The turtle-dove is accused of a like carelessness in the con- 
struction of its nest. The nighthawk and the whippoorwill, 
though building no nest at all, are more considerate of their 
babes, at least assuring them against the fate of the cuckoo’s 
brood by nesting on the ground. 
Last summer I was favored with a rare neighbor in the shape 
of a red-headed woodpecker, not a common visitant in Connecti- 
cut, at least in the section familiar to me. Remembering that 
this was the bird whose flashing plumage and flaming scarlet 
head kindled the ornithological fervor of Wilson, which led to his 
subsequent fame, my visitor came doubly recommended. The 
nest was excavated on the underside of a large branch of an 
apple-tree near the house; and even though naturally safe from 
observation, the bird seemed little desirous of concealment, pirou- 
etting about the elm trunk close by the window and speeding 
like a rocket directly to its nest. 
At first thought the peculiar conditions of the woodpecker’s 
