nest; while the nestlings, filled with fear and wonder, are crouching with their heads close to the bottom of the nest and cocking up their tails. If you wish to take them you must be careful how you manage, for they will often bolt out of the nest with a scream, in different directions, the old birds vociferously calling them, and trying to get them to a place of safety. The young ones remain quiet in the places they have flown to, until their alarm is over and hunger compels them to call for food; you may then by patiently watching, and being directed by their call, as well as marking the place where the old birds feed them, secure one or more.
A young nestling that I took on the 29th of last June, would often turn himself completely round and round the perch of his cage, without letting go his hold; he began to record and warble his song as soon as he could feed, and when about seven weeks old would break out pretty loud. As with most nestling birds when learning, you can make out but little resemblance to their proper notes.
The reed-warbler's nest now and then receives a cuckoo's egg, as I find by my notes that on the 15th of June, 1834, when close to the New-cross canal, about four miles from London, I found a cuckoo's egg in each of two nests built among reeds, within sixty yards of each other. One of the nests had three eggs in it besides the cuckoo's; the reed-bird's eggs had been sat on about a week: the other nest had two fresh eggs besides the cuckoo's. From their being so near to each other, it is probable that the two cuckoo's eggs were laid by the same bird.
At the latter end of July, 1829, while reading in my garden, which adjoins a market-garden,[1] I was agreeably surprised to see a young cuckoo, nearly full grown, alight on the railings between the two, not more than a dozen yards from where I was sitting. Anxious to see what birds had reared this cuckoo I silently watched his movements, and had not waited more than a minute, when a reed-warbler flew to the cuckoo, who, crouching down with his belly close to the rail, and fluttering his wings, opened wide his orange-coloured mouth to receive the insect his foster-mother had brought him. This done, the reedwarbler flew away for a fresh supply of food. The difference in the size of the two birds was great; it was like a pigmy feeding a giant, while the reed-warbler was absent, the cuckoo shuffled along the rail and hopped upon a slender post to which it was nailed, and which projected about eight inches above the rail. The reed-warbler soon returned with more food, and alighted close to the cuckoo, but on the
- ↑ In the Blue-Anchor road, Bermondsey.
