237 



or three feet from their nest box, they continued the 

 construction of their nest with absolute unconcern and 

 several times alighted on my shoulders. 



Two young were hatched and most carefully fed 

 by the parents but, alas, they only survived a very 

 few days. 



Meantime one of the hens in the adjoining out- 

 door aviary had been sitting very steadily and also 

 hatched two young. The poor thing had a very bad 

 time of it for, whenever she left the nest, the other 

 two hens — no doubt envious of her success — used to 

 make a combined attack upon her, driving her about 

 unmercifully. 



These two jealous spinsters succeeded in entering 

 the nest box one day and killed one of the young, but 

 the remaining one grew apace. Its parents iised to 

 spend hours in catching midges for it and I used to 

 supplement this diet by placing mealworms in the 

 nest box which the hen at once passed on to the 

 youngster. This hen also was wonderfully tame. If 

 one wished to examine the young bird she had to be 

 prized off the nest with a stick. 



The youngster was lighter in colour than the 

 adults but had more spots. Curiously enough he 

 showed the bright yellow rump in his very fiirst nest 

 plumage. He very soon become independent and I 

 have a note that I heard him singing on April 23rd. 

 The same adult male paired with the other two hens 

 and one of the latter hatched, but she did not rear the 

 young, so that from four nests only one young bird 

 was fully reared, However, of course one does not 

 expect great results from aviculture in February. 



Our Zoological Gardens very nearly succeeded in 



