. Bird-lore . how. What is generally called instinct in birds haslong since been to me a term used to explain what in reality is in-telligence. Some writer has mentioned that as soon as the young Kingfishers 78 Bird- Lore are able, they wander about their little home until they are able tofly, but evidently his experience was limited. My four pictures of theyoung birds were taken by lifting them out of their nests and placingthem in a proper place to be photographed in the light, but the firsttwo pictures were taken in the positions in which they were naturallyfound in the nest. The first, whe
. Bird-lore . how. What is generally called instinct in birds haslong since been to me a term used to explain what in reality is in-telligence. Some writer has mentioned that as soon as the young Kingfishers 78 Bird- Lore are able, they wander about their little home until they are able tofly, but evidently his experience was limited. My four pictures of theyoung birds were taken by lifting them out of their nests and placingthem in a proper place to be photographed in the light, but the firsttwo pictures were taken in the positions in which they were naturallyfound in the nest. The first, when they were about two days old,was obtained on the 21st of May, i8gg, and the young were notonly found wrapped together in the nest, but the moment they wereput on the ground, one at a time, though their eyes were stillsealed, they immediately covered one another with their wings andwide bills, making such a tight ball that when any one shifted aleg, the whole mass would move like a single bird. This is a most. luLM. KINGFISHERS, 1 m i r> wi.,, sensible method of keeping warm, since the mother birds legs areso short that she could not stand over them, but as the} are pro-tected from the wind and weather they have no need of her. Theirappearance is comical in the extreme, and all out of clinging to one another is apparently kept up for at least tendays, for a week later, when nine days old, they were found inexactly a similar position. When the young were first observed they were absolutely naked,without the suggestion of a feather, and, unlike most young birds,showed no plumage of any kind until the regular final feathering,which was the same as that of the adult, began to appear. Thegrowth of the birds was remarkably slow, and even when nine daysold the feathers were just beginning to push through their tinysheaths, but so distinctly showed their markings that I was able todistinguish the sexes by the coloring of the bands on the chest. The Kingfish
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Keywords: ., boo, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectbirdsperiodicals
