50 H, G. Eaton 



Some Nesting Habits of the Cape Robin. 



By H. G. Eaton. 



This year a pair of Cape robins conducted house-keeping oper- 

 ations in my garden. At one side of the garden, about forty feet 

 from the stoep, is a rustic summer house with an equally rustic 

 flower stand at the back of it, here among the dried fronds of 

 a fern the robins built their nest. The earlier operations I did 

 not see being confined to the house through illness, and when con- 

 valescence made observation from the stoep possible, the young 

 birds were on the high road towards fledging. Unfortunately 

 the observations only lasted a week owing to the intrusion of a 

 rival observer whose ornithological interests were solely gusta- 

 tory. 



The feeding of the young was carried on by both parent birds, 

 but the method of approaching and leaving the nest was markedly 

 different. The male flew to a cross pole of the summer house, 

 took a quick look round and dived straight down to the nest. 

 He left it in the same way apparently without much thought for 

 concealment. The female on the other hand was most furtive. 

 She flew first of all to a near by rose arch, then to the top or 

 side of the summer house, then to the lower shelf of the flower 

 stand at the end remote from the nest. From this spot she 

 darted to the next keeping behind the flower pots. She followed 

 the same route on leaving. Her looks round were not at all 

 perfunctory; they took anything from a quarter to half a minute. 

 She varied this approach sometimes by dropping down through 

 the branches of a tree forming one comer of the summer house, 

 and flitting through the ferns. Her extreme caution was amus- 

 ing and, in view of the rival investigator, pathetic. 



About three yards from where I was sitting there was a 

 patch of dry sandy dust. I noticed that both birds brought the 

 grubs or worms to this patch and deliberately rolled them in 



