130 MUTTON BIRDS 



The female bird, I think, took entire charge 

 of the feeding department, and I believe the 

 supplies consisted of the tender tips of certain 

 shrubs — coprosmas, I think — and their embryo 

 bJossoms. Once, at any rate, I found an 

 infinitesimal pai-ticle of stuff of this sort 

 dropped on the bark, and close below the nest, 

 and which could only have fallen from the bird's 

 bill. Two minutes was about the average time 

 taken by the hen in feeding her nestlings, and 

 I think it quite possible that each of the nine 

 got its share at every recurring visit of the 

 parent bird. 



Little Parrakeets never cease whilst absorbing 

 their supplies, to make delighted little guzzling 

 sounds, and I alwaj^s imagined I could tell by 

 the different pitch of the notes, that on different 

 occasions larger or smaller chicks were being 

 fed. I am sure no struggling for precedence 

 ever took place in that crammed nursery. Each, 

 nearly naked or almost fully fledged, climbed up 

 as bidden, a little out of the nest bottom. Indeed 

 when the hen Parrakeet had become very tame, 

 I was permitted to climb above the hole and peer 

 into the nest whilst the meal was in progress. 

 There I could always distinguish four or five 

 little grey bills and four or five little open 

 mouths, and admire the household's order and 

 the obedience of its inmates. After each chick 

 in its turn was fed, the hen for a few minutes 

 would A\dthdraw her head ov sometimes half her 

 bod}^ from the hole, and proceed with a sort of 

 munching process. She would then again lean 

 over the brink of the hole and nod into it with 

 violent gesticulations — exactly as if with 

 imperious haste another chick was being sum- 



