LIFE AND BEHAVIOR OF THE CUCKOO 
223 
Observations on the brooding activities of birds in the wild 
state are so meager, it may be worth while to give such as can now 
be offered in some detail. The female at nest No. 1 (table 4) 
brooded but once during the four days of our observations, but 
then for a period of thirty-eight minutes, beginning at 4.45 p.m; 
the weather was cool and cloudy, and the youngest bird in the 
nest was four days old. At this visit the old bird, after feeding 
her young, raised her wings slightly and settled over them, re- 
peatedly erecting and dropping her breast-feathers, to let the 
nestlings under and to cover them. With head-feathers^ often 
erect, occasionally turning her head from side to side, the bird 
sat quietly, and was keenly alert to every sound and movement 
about her, rising only to accommodate her strenuous young, which 
seemed never to rest, but were constantly burrowing about, utter- 
ing their low grating notes in chorus, and poking out their heads. 
In illustration of habit we may notice here that brooding birds 
almost invariably face the same way (compare figs. 17-18), the 
habit being formed quickly, and held to persistently. They face 
the side of easiest approach, which also commands the widest 
range of vision. When the tent was erected beside the nest on 
the first day, it was three hours before this bird would return to 
her young; on the second day behavior was unrestrained, and she 
brooded for over half an hour within reach of the hand. All the 
nests studied were in the same pasture, and cows with their clang- 
ing bells often brushed close to tent and sitting bird, but such 
sounds had become familiar, and to either parent, whether en- 
gaged in brooding or feeding its young, they offered no terrors. 
Since nest no. 3 was too low for convenient observation, the 
entire tree was cut off, raised six inches, rotated to avoid ob- 
structing branches, and secured by its base in a well, sunk in a 
stake, which was in turn set deep into the ground. When this 
nest was closely approached for the purpose, the male who hap- 
pened to be coming with food, gave the staccato alarm, koor-uck- 
uck-uk ate his insect, and wiped his bill, but the female maintained 
her position until driven off showing that this alarm is not neces- 
sarily effective when its source can be seen. The female after 
leaving gave the same call, and the male continued to repeat it 
