224 WITH NATURE AXJJ A C'AMEIiA. 



were running' about everywhere aniong-st the fine 

 grass and horsehair with which it was lined. They 

 must have been there before the young birds took 

 their departure upon my looking into their little 

 domed cradle, and how their disturbing presence 

 could have been tolerated I cannot make out. 



The Fly^catcher seldom went further than a 

 dead branch projecting from a tall ash tree gro wing- 

 close by her nest for food, which she seemed to 

 allow to come to her and tlien snatch by a short 

 fluttering excursion into the air. I timed her visits 

 to her nest with food on several occasions during 

 the day, and she never exceeded two in five 

 minutes. I do not thiidv that she received any 

 assistance whatever from her male companion, as I 

 never saw him near the nest. On the other hand 

 the cock Blue Tit helped the hen with a will, and 

 they invariably came back from a raid on cater- 

 pillars together. About noon a bird entered the 

 nesting hole twice in four minutes, but by six 

 o'clock in the evening the rate of feeding had in- 

 creased to six times in five minutes, that is, of 

 course in each case counting the combined efforts 

 of tlie parent birds. 



Whilst in the heart of Essex during the Whitsun 

 holidays of 1897 we were shown a Jay's nest, 

 situated in a young birch tree growing in a thick 

 dark wood. In s])ite of a necessarily poor light, 

 swarms of gnats, and the shyness of a very cunning- 

 bird, my brother determined to try to make a 

 pliotograph of her in tlie act of feeding her young, 

 so we set to work and built a tliick bower of 

 branches, with just a small peep-hole for the lens 

 of liis camera, near the top of the side connnanding 

 a view of tlie nest, and another some distance 

 Ijelow it for })ur})oses of oljservation. 



