A F CIV Experiments. 119 



looked flying' al^out the .garden and surrounding country. They 

 rambled off to consdierabie distances and were sometimes seen 

 near the railway, about a mile from here. The cock was the 

 first to come to business and constructed a nest entirely on his 

 own in a hole under the gables of a large outhouse about 20ft. 

 from the ground. It was a long while, however, before he 

 could induce the hen to take any interest in his labours. At long 

 last, however, virtue had its reward, and the hen herself com- 

 menced to make provision for the needs of a prospective family. 

 Instead, however, of finishing .off the practically completed nest 

 built with so much painstaking; labour by her mate, she, to his 

 manifest dismay, and with true feminine perversity (my 

 apologies to lady readers), selected an altogether different site at 

 the top of a dead ivy-covered tree about thirty feet from the 

 ground. Having completed this nest. she. rnther to my relief, 

 for this tree formed one of the favourite stalking haunts of a 

 beastly black cat, evidently deciding that the position was not 

 quite to her liking or being persuaded by her mate that the one 

 chosen by him v;as in every way more desirable, she deserted it 

 and began to put the finishing touches to the cock's nest — a move 

 which in any case highly delighted this w'orthy. Incidentally, 

 it is worthy of remark that on every occasion, both when at 

 liberty and in the aviary, I have noticed that whilst the cock is 

 invariably the first to commence nesting operations, no sooner 

 does the hen begin to exert herself in this direction than the 

 cock forthwith declines to take any further part in them, merely 

 contenting himself with keeping a sharp look out from some 

 commanding point of vantage for possible danger, and enliven- 

 ing" the labours of the hen with his continuous singing — joyous 

 music wdiich makes up in the wild abandon of its expression for 

 what it lacks in other respects. Three eggs were laid and all 

 seemed well when the hen was apparently once again seized 

 with a spirit of restlessness, for she suddenly abandoned the 

 eggs, and on the next day recommenced nesting operations, 

 selecting as a site this time almost the top of a gigantic elm tree, 

 sixty or seventy feet from the ground. Four days later she 

 disappeared, a victim, probably, to some hawk or owl. Having 

 a spare hen bred by me from another pair last season I now 

 released this bird, whereupon the cock, a most forlorn looking 

 figure up to this moment, went frantic with delight, and after a 



