210 
FRANCIS H. HERRICK 
cleared the nest with a bound, caught a twig, and held on with 
head down (attitude shown in fig. 10) . In a moment it had pulled 
itself up, and was comfortably perched. 
yhis is the first step, and what happens next depends as much 
upon the actions of the old birds as upon the young. If no danger 
threatens, this bird is likely to be fed at the first perch, close to 
its nest, in the nesting tree, and if this spot is shaded and other- 
wise comfortable, association with feeding at this point will be 
quickly established, and may hold it there for a long time. Ordi- 
narily however, the climber is liable to move about in the nest- 
tree, and if it drops to the ground will mount into the bushes again, 
and finally select a perch a few feet or yards away, to which through 
association it may hold for days, if undisturbed. 
What actually happened in the case just described was different, 
for, having learned from experience the unpleasant consequences 
of losing even one of the nestlings owing to the division and diver- 
sion of parental attentions which inevitably follows, I immediately 
returned this one to its nest, but it promptly jumped out again. 
This was repeated three times in five minutes, when at last it 
dropped to the ground, was quickly enticed away by one of the 
old birds and was soon gone past recovery, although the grass 
and bushes were beaten in all directions. At another time I 
tried to hold the climbing young bird in an enclosure of wattled 
twigs, but to no avail, for they readily scale all such barriers, and 
I only succeeded in keeping them captive by taking them home 
with me for the night. It is only by thus securing and holding 
the climbing birds that observations on a nest of cuckoos can be 
conducted with any satisfaction, and prolonged for a period of 
eight or nine days, for with the successive withdrawals of the 
older young from the nest, the instincts of the parents seem to be 
satisfied by the attention bestowed upon those in the bush. In 
any case the last young, if backward in development, is sometimes 
left to starve, as I have noticed in one or two cases. 
The last bird in nest no. 1 was thus abandoned and several years ago I found 
a nest of the cuckoo with a young bird in the quill stage resting in it, and looking 
quite life-like. It proved to be a dried ''mummy" and was probably deserted in 
the same manner. 
