on further episodes in the life of a pair of Shamas. 267


Both the honevmooners very soon found themselves back in

their old quarters. Building operations were almost at once resumed,

and on the following Thursday (May 17th) the first egg was laid.

Five completed the clutch, and four young birds hatched out on

June 1st and 2nd. On June 12th the first baby left the nest, being

put back in the evening, and on the following day all left the family

roof.


It was very interesting to watch the parent birds’ efforts to

induce the young ones to come out, going to the entrance with food

and withdrawing without giving it.


After the house was empty the cock entered and had a good

look round, singing to himself, sotto voce, all the time, with an

occasional chuckle suggesting the inquiry, “ Any more for the

shore?” He spent a good deal of time inside the box at this

juncture, constantly exhorting his wife to hurry up and settle the old

nest for a new family.


On June 18th the young birds were pretty strong on the wing,

although not yet inclined to feed themselves, and the first egg of the

second batch was laid.


For a day or two before the young left the nest I noticed the

hen sitting, often for quite a long time, on the edge, making occa¬

sional dives into the nest with her beak. I cannot decide what this

was for, as it had nothing to do with sanitary arrangements, but

suggest she may have been stripping the quills from the wing

feathers. The parents constantly carried grit by itself to the young,

and often fed them when quite young with large cockroaches, which

they preferred to the other items of their menu—mealworms, gentles,

and live ants’ eggs.


When the hen was adding to the first nest, she occasionally

forgot whether she was feeding young or building the nest, and the

look of disgust on the face of the baby who had his mouth filled with

hay was quite worth going a distance to see.


I noticed one of the young babies preening his feathers on the

day after, and another actually taking a bath three days after leaving

the nest, stooping and flapping his wings in the approved style, while

five days after leaving home I saw and heard one make an attempt

to imitate the singing of an avadavat in the adjoining compartment.



