1902 Bird-Life on the Broads : Stwimer 213 



tailed Butterflies and great big Tom Breeders (Dragon-flies) 

 flitted by, Horse-flies and Thunder-bugs (midges) tarried 

 with us longer than was pleasant, but the Harrier seemed to 

 be gone for good — perhaps she knew that in the noontide 

 hours of a blazing summer's day her uncovered eggs would 

 long retain the necessary temperature to sustain the in- 

 cipient life within. The further incubation has proceeded 

 the longer may eggs be left by the parent bird. Last year, 

 by mistake, I shut a Bantam off five hen's eggs for seven 

 hours : they were in a wooden box about 3 feet square, and 

 in the full sun. I broke one, and was surprised to find that 

 the almost-fit-to-hatch chick was still alive : the remaining 

 four are still inhabiting my poultry yard. 



But to hark back to the Harrier, we eventually watched 

 the bird to her nest, left her undisturbed, hurried home in a 

 thunderstorm, and wired off for a photographer. On his 

 arrival next day, too late for the light to take a portrait, I 

 told him of the trouble and night-watching necessary, to 

 make sure of seeing something when he brought his camera 

 up to the spot. " Leave that to me," he said ; and, knowing 

 my man, I made no further inquiries or remonstrances, and 

 it eventually transpired that he so pleased Josh and Tom, 

 the suspects, with his exhibitions of the Highland fling and 

 comic songs, mingled with a more than liberal supply of High- 

 land spirits, that at turning-out-time neither of them felt 

 inclined for birds'-nesting for the next twelve hours ; ere 

 which the profound student of Natural History had suc- 

 cessfully exposed his plates on the nest and eggs of the 

 Montagu — the bird herself being subsequently destroyed, 

 and her perforce deserted eggshells are before me as I 

 write. 



