LIFE AND BEHAVIOR OF THE CUCKOO 
225 
seemed to swell to a great size, and would then settle down low, 
and with partly spread wings attempt to shield her young from 
the storm. The water stood in beads all over her head, back, 
wings, and tail, and rolled off without wetting any of her feathers 
for some time. Gradually however the fine feathers about the 
bill, and eventually those of the head and throat became soaked, 
representing possibly those parts least accessible to oil, which is 
applied with the bill. The young continued their restless move- 
ments during the storm, as well as their chorus of hissing sounds. 
The rain lasted about one and one-half hours, and the brooding 
period one hour and thirty-eight minutes, during which the brooder 
was silent, and never shook off a drop of water. Two or three 
times she rose and examined her young, and would occasionally 
turn her head from side to side, open and close her bill, half close 
her eyes, or move to accommodate her strenuous nestlings. At 
5.05 p. m. when the rain had about ceased a distant kow-kow note 
was heard from the male, and presently he approached, thoroughly 
drenched, and bearing a large grasshopper. At the sound of his 
low mewing note when a few feet away, but still out of sight of 
the sitter, the female slipped off quietly and disappeared. The 
male then went through the stereotyped round of feeding, in- 
spection, cleaning, and in his turn retired. After an absence of 
eight minutes, the female again returned at 5.18 p. m., served 
h T young, and resumed her brooding. The storm was then nearly 
past, and she had become wetter in seeking the food, than in 
sitting at the nest. Her respirations had fallen from 100 at 3.30 
p. m. to 80 at this hour of the evening. Owing to her quiet atti- 
tudes it was possible to photograph her at any time during lulls 
in the storm by giving the plate an exposure of several seconds. 
From the facts, given above it would appear that intermittent 
brooding, which may continue for a week, after the young are 
hatched must be considered as a reaction to an external stimulus, 
in which temperature and other weather conditions play the most 
important part, but determined also in some degree by contact and 
visual stimuli, so long as there are eggs. In the earlier period of 
incubation the sight and touch of the eggs probably furnished 
the external stimuli for those profound changes in disposition and 
THE JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL ZOOLOGY, VOL. 9, NO. 1. 
