BIRD CRADLES. 
55 
nest, the fair structure of the sunshine 
hterally melting away in the rain. Dur¬ 
ing the past wet season two such mishaps 
occurred upon my lawn, the nests having 
disentangled and fallen in a shapeless 
mass, scattering the egg contents upon 
the ground. 
Recently I chanced upon another 
reckless nest, that of the yellow-billed 
cuckoo, or rain-crow, in the top of an 
apple-tree, if, indeed, the loose pile of 
sticks could be dignified by the name of 
nest at all, being more suggestive of a 
gridiron, through which the outlines of 
the head and the long projecting tail 
of the bird were distinctly perceptible 
against the sky. As I climbed the tree 
the bird flew to the neighboring branches, 
uttering an occasional hoarse croak in 
its famihar tone, obedient as it were, to 
a periodic pumping stroke of the long 
tail. I found the nest occupied by a sin¬ 
gle fledghng, and was moved to congrat¬ 
ulate 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 presum¬ 
ably former bed-fellows, 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 common, and in the case 
of this bird, a near congener to the Eu¬ 
ropean 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 contributoiy negli¬ 
gence toward the destruction of its off¬ 
spring 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 
parasitical to a higher state, the dawn¬ 
ing inteUigence in the art of nest-build- 
ing. 
The turtle-dove is accused of a like 
carelessness in the construction of its 
nest. The night-hawk and the whip- 
poor-will, 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 Connecticut, at least in the 
section familiar to me. Remembering 
that this was the bird whose flashing 
plumage and flaming scarlet head kin¬ 
dled the ornithological fervor of Wilson, 
which led to his subsequent fame, my 
visitor came doubly recommended. The 
nest was excavated on the under side 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, pirouetting 
about the elm trunk close by the win¬ 
dow and speeding like a rocket directly 
to its nest. 
At first thought the peculiar condi¬ 
tions of the woodpecker’s nest would ap¬ 
pear to offer advantages of safety above 
those of other birds, as in truth it does, 
being at least secure against the hawks 
and owls and foxes. Yet it is by no means 
invulnerable. The black snake has a 
well-known fancy for young woodpeckers, 
and has often been surprised within the 
burrow, to the horror of the small boy 
oologist, perhaps, who is thinking only 
of the rare white eggs as he feels the 
depths of the hollow. The birds are 
also an easy prey to the murderous red 
squirrel, one of the arch enemies of our 
nesting birds. Last year two of my 
woodpecker fledglings fell his victims, 
and only a few^ weeks since a whole fam¬ 
ily of flickers, which built in a large 
neighboring maple, were well-nigh ex¬ 
terminated by the same brigand. Two 
fully pinioned fledglings were found 
dead on the ground beneath the hole, 
each with an ugly gash at the throat, and 
one of which the squirrel w^as observed 
dragging by the head, while endeavor¬ 
ing to ascend the trunk—treating birds 
hke pine-cones—dropping his cone first 
to enjoy it at his leisure. But one 
survivor of the brood was seen later, and 
this doubtless followed the fate of the 
others. The woodpeckers, in addition 
to serving their ovm ends, are also pio¬ 
neers for a number of smaller fry among 
the birds, the deserted tunnels being in 
great demand for apartments, and of¬ 
ten a prize won only by supreme strat¬ 
egy or victory among the bluebirds, 
nut hatches, creepers, wrens, and chicka¬ 
dees, though the last has been known to 
excavate its own domicile. Indeed, to the 
wren a hole of any kind possesses great 
