. Essays and photographs. Some birds of the Canary Islands and South Africa . ird which goes by the name of the Piet MijnVroiiw, the distinctive notes of which bird are to beheard almost any time of the day during the SouthAfrican spring. These notes have an almost exact re-semblance to the three Dutch words quoted above. It seems odd to hear of a Cuckoo that makes its ownnest, and although the Cuckoos mentioned above are,like the species with which we are familiar, parasitic,yet there is at least one kind of Cuckoo which inhabitsthe Knysna forest that builds for itself. This is theLark-heeled
. Essays and photographs. Some birds of the Canary Islands and South Africa . ird which goes by the name of the Piet MijnVroiiw, the distinctive notes of which bird are to beheard almost any time of the day during the SouthAfrican spring. These notes have an almost exact re-semblance to the three Dutch words quoted above. It seems odd to hear of a Cuckoo that makes its ownnest, and although the Cuckoos mentioned above are,like the species with which we are familiar, parasitic,yet there is at least one kind of Cuckoo which inhabitsthe Knysna forest that builds for itself. This is theLark-heeled Cuckoo, which belongs to the family ofBush-Cuckoos, the accompanying illustration showingthe nest and two young ones of this bird. The nest inquestion, which was made entirely of straw, was placedalmost at the top of a high mimosa bush which formedpart of a tall hedge, and was constructed in a somewhatslovenly way, as though the bird had considered it ratherout of its province to make a nest at all. There wasa large opening at one side, perhaps nine inches in PLATE NEST AND YOUNG OF LARK-HEELED CUCKOO. (Centropus senegalensis.) KNYSNA 129 diameter, and the nest would measure about two feetvertically by one foot six inches horizontally. This nestcontained two young birds, lately hatched, which had arather uncanny appearance. This singular appearance,I have since learned, is on account of the extreme pro-longation of the sheaths which envelop the embryofeathers on the very young of this class of Cuckoo, andwhen these young birds erect their feathers in themanner shown in the illustration, this extraordinarygrowth has the appearance of long hairs brushedstraight up. We found this nest very difficult of approach, itbeing placed about ten feet from the ground, and sur-rounded by the long needle-like thorns of the mimosa,some of which attain a length of five or six thorn, which grows in the shape of a fish-hook,but without the barb, is the wait-a-bit thorn; it
Size: 1385px × 1804px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookpublisherlondo, bookyear1901
