British Birds 327 



Their craft not to lietray site of nest was very ap- 

 parent,— mostly alighting some forty feet away, gradually 

 creeping up to it, over and under the grass. Whichever point 

 the nest was approached from their procedure was invariably 

 tho same and I watched them with great interest. 



fn this nest, the second of the season, I was much in- 

 terested to find three eggs of normal size and one, but little 

 larger than a pea — comparative sizes can be clearly seen in 

 photo. 



The cock feeds his incubating mate. 



The young are fed every ten or fifteen miuutos by both 

 parents, .chiedy with grubs, in only one 'instance have T seen a 

 winged insect (such as moths) carried to the young. In the 

 photo of the young rushing out of the nest — the one farthest 

 away has been fed, and the others are shown coming out 

 for their share. 



I wondered while watching them how it was that the 

 parents coming to feed hardly ever fed the same chick twice — 

 the reason appeared to me to be that provender brought at 

 each visit was not sufficient to go round — the most persistent 

 chick got the food, and those most recently fed were not so 

 persistent as the rest. Though mostly all gaped with each visit 

 careful observation showed that the same chick did not get 

 fed on consecutive visits. 



Method of feeding: The parent crawls or sneaks up to 

 the nest, and if all appears to be clear proceeds to distribute 

 the prey he has gathered — the grub is dabbed as it were into 

 the beak several times before it is in a position to be swal- 

 lowed. At any rate the procedure conveys that impression, for 

 in no case did I see a grub placed in the beak (gape) and 

 swallowed straight away. 



Practically at every visit the parents take away 

 excreta, in fact appear loth to go away without. 



As soon as the young begin to get fairly feathered they 

 leave the nest In the daytime, wandering about in its vicinity, 

 but returning to the nest at night for some days. 



Parents sing when coming with food and when in the 

 hiding tent waiting for the critical moment to make the ex- 



