The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1874-11-05
Stories for the Young Folks.
BIRDS AND THEIR NESTS.
DIR. BEETLE ON THE.CUCKoO.


The European cuckoo is quite big bird,
being fourteen inches long. It's hack Is blu
ish grey, its breast an ashen grey Its note
is mach like It's name. Perhaps you have
heard cuckoo-clock, which initiates the
cali of this bird when striking the hours.
Then you know what It's voice is like-that is
When 1t first makes IT'S appearance |; for later
it changes its song. What 1t sings then Is
told ia this rhyme, three hundred years old,
for long before that Scotch boys day people
noticed the cuckco's singing:
Tin April the cuckoo can sing her song by
tote,
At first koo. koo koo, koo; sings till she
At last kooke, kooke, bsoke ; six kookes to
one koo'
The curious thing aboEt the bird is that
1t does not build nest for itself, but lays lts
eggs in anoth Ell birds nest and goes off ana
leaves it. The nest of the wren is ofteu cho
sen. Soon after the cuckoo is Matched it
squirms and twists until IL gets the other
out so it can have all the food and all the
room to itself. The full-grown wrens are
only four inches long, and this big baby-b
keeps Them at work all the tlme bringing
it food. AS soon as the cuckoo is grown it
flies off to its own kind.
Cuckoos follow tho warm weather. Some.
times in summer they 60 even as far north
as Russia and Siberia towards winter thew
fly south as far as Africa. But the little
wrens stay at home all the year round.
Sometimes on cold day six or seven have
been found in one Rest together trying to
keep warm.
ON NESTS.
Wrens are fussy nest-builders. The moth
er wren has been seen to pull the nest so
often to pieces that her mate has left In dis
gust. Leaves, moss, grass, and lichens are
what they weave together. The roof of
their house Is dome shaped the entrance il
a little sde-door. They like TO Luild under
meath caves, and pair was once known to
choose pump for home, going in and out
through the spout.
Nests are fashioned in many different WAYS.
The Baltimore oriole, traveller which visits
Us In summer, Is cloth maker You all
know him. He has a grey scarlet yest
B. glossy black back, his wings are tipped
With bright orange, and he sings a bold.
joyful song. He chooses the end of a high
tree branch, fastens strings of fax or hemp
around two-forked twigs, and on these he
weaves his nest. The hemp or fax, mixed
with tow, Is worked into cloth. lined with
what is soft, sewed through and through
with horse hair, and is sheltered at tho ton
by the leaves. When finished the nest looks
ike pocket about seven inches long.
There is bird which is such an adent
sewer that 1t is called the tailor bird. The
needle ia its sharp beak, and the thread /.
fne grass, or the bits of cotton It fnds.
It is even said to make knots to keep It's
work from ripping. This bird lives in tina
East Indies. and it's nest is an extraordinary
piece of work, for it chooses the living leaves
of some tree, fastsns them together as have
told you, and In this pouch, still attached
to the tree by the foot-stalk, II p]aces ito
nest. By this means the young are kept
'ate from snakes and monkeys, and the
other enemies birds have to fesr In warm
THE ovEN-BU1LDHR.
The strange nest-maker known by this
lame lives In South America and the West
indies. 1t seems as fond of mud houses "a
children are OF mud pies. Being bold bird
tbuilds anywhere it chooses, even in the
DOM OF a house, # it takes notion to do 80.
When at work, oven-builders alternately
'ring clay and sticks to the place they have
elected, and erect what looks like q NINA.
ure bakers oven. The opening is on the
ide. Within are rooms separated by a