THE ADOPTED CHILD

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1076, 13 September 1930, Page 31

THE ADOPTED CHILD

A Story of a Young Cuckoo

Cuckoo-llen awoke one morning and ’ began to grumble. The noise she j made was a kind of gurgling, but this i is what she meant: “Isn’t it time I had j a nest?” “Why do you want a nest?” gurgled \ Cuckoo. “It is quite comfortable on ! this perch. It is all snug and dim | among the foliage of this elm. Why ; do you want a nest?” “I want it to lay my eggs in. of course. Other birds have nests, so why shouldn’t I?” “Cuckoos don’t make nests. You know that very well.” “Yes, I know; but I must lay my eggs somewhere. If I lay them on this branch, they will roll off and get smashed.” * “Bay them on the ground.” “What? On the ground? For a rabbit to tread on? Xo, I must have a nest for my eggs.” “You had better use somebody else’s nest,” said Cuckoo, and he heartlessly flew away. Cuckoo-Hen ran along the ground under the hedge, and presently she saw a nest above her. She flew up, and peeped into it. It was a cupshaped nest, with one blue egg in it. But the nest was too small for such a large bird to sit upon, and CuckooHen knew it. However, she soon got over that difficulty. She fluttered to the ground and laid her egg among the leaves. Such a pretty egg it was! It was no larger than a sparrow’s egg, but the colour was pale green, sprinkled with red-brown spots. Cuckoo-Hen picked it up in her beak, carried it to the nest she had found, and popped it gently beside the pale blue egg which was already there. Then she flew off, leaving her baby . for somebody else to hatch. It was a j little hedge-sparrow, if you want to r know. i Each day for five days Cuckoo-Hen ; laid an egg. Five eggs in all, and ! each egg went into a different nest. ! That’s an easy way to bring up a ’ family, isn’t it? I

Tweet-tweet: Twitter-twitter: Flut-ter-flutter! Dear me, what a fuss! Mr. Hedge-Sparrow and Mrs. HedgeSparrow were talking nineteen to the dozen, and all because they had heard a tiny sound. Such a tiny, tiny sound that only the sharpest ears could have heard it! It was the softest—softest —little wee tap. “Tap. Tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap.” Mrs. Hedge-Sparrow put her head close against each of her eggs in turn, and soon she found out which ont* held the tapping fledgling. Immediately she began to tap on the outside. Good strong taps she made. Tap, tap-tap-tap! “Tap. tap-tap-tap . . went the fledgling. “Tap! Tap! Tap!” went the mother bird. Very soon there was a crack in the egg and then there came a tiny squeak. Immediately the mother-bird answered it with a tender bubbly kind of twittering and the father-bird swelled his throat and burst into a joyous song. “Tap! Tap! Tap!” went the little hedge-sparrow, clawing at the crack and pecking at the edge until the top of the egg lifted up like a lid. and a tiny cuckoo-bird crept out. He was thin and wet and shivering, and too tired to stand upon his feet. So he just lay down in the nest and the little mother-bird spread her wing over him to keep him snug. As for the father-bird, his business was to fetch a worm, so off he flew. Hid these hedge-sparrows know that the cuckoo-bird had no business in that nest? That is hard to say, but they took care of the baby cuckoo as if it were their own. Cuckoo-baby was a very small fledgling when he caxne out of the egg, but he grew—oh, how he grew! He ate—oh, how he ate! The two hedgesparrows who owned the nest were kept twice as busy as they ought to have been, fetching worms and grubs for their own fledglings, and this greedy extra baby too. ! Before long the nest was too small | for everybody. The birds were ever ! so squashed when they went to bed. ; “This isn’t comfortable.” thought the ! cuckoo-baby, and one day, while the I parent birds were away, he did a • naughty thing. He hollowed his back. ■' scooped one of the fledgling sparrows upon it, gave a sudden hump, and tipped the baby out. He did it to a second fledgling, and a third, and a fourth. Luckily they did not have far to fall. When the parent birds came back, they found one fat bird in an otherwise empty nest. The little hadge- | sparrow fledglings were twittering on j the ground, but the bird in the nest ! was making a curious sound in his throat. I “Cuckncuck-cuckoo-coo-cob cuckoo," ho said. “Ah, I thought you were a strange bird to be in a hedge sparrow’s nest,” twittered the sparrows. Soon after that the cuckoo flew awaj . He wanted a nest no longer, but found a perch for himself on an elm., “Cuckoo! Cuckoo!" he sang. He spent many hours in the orchards, , hunting for grubs and caterpillars. The apples were ripening as the sum ' mer drew on—and presently there I were no caterpillars left. Then Cuckoo’s song began to change and to turn to a gurgling sound like this, “Coocoo-coocoo-coocoo-cuck-ooo-coocoo.” And one evening a magic whisper came from goodness knows where. Cuckoo heard it, and instead of going I to sleep he mounted into the sky. and there he met hundreds of other cuckoos hovering above the clouds. At sunset they all swerved, and away they went on a journey to Africa. Every bird in that flock was a young cuckoo who had never been' abroad ; before. And yet they knew the way. They did not wait for the older birds who were thi*ee whole days behind. • Now. wasn’t that a miracle?