another attempt at breeding Yelloiv-winged sugar-birds. 273


hen drops eggs anywhere but in the nest and considers that she has

done her duty. This year she began in the same foolish way, but I

saw she spent hours perched as near as the sugar-birds would allow,

watching their young, and at last she took to her own nest and

actually laid and incubated steadily. Such is the force of a good

example!


Meanwhile the sugar-birds grew and prospered and, one day,

while their mother was bathing, I took my first peep ; they were then

a week old and had their eyes open. They reminded me of young

hedge sparrows, except that their gapes were yellow and beaks large

and clumsy-looking, but not long, in fact they showed very little

of their pai'entage. They wore the Red-Indian sort of coiffure

favoured by most nestlings, and the wing feathers were just showing

through the quills. There were two, which seems to be the usual

number in sugar-bird nurseries, and one was certainly larger and

more developed, though both looked healthy and plump.


The next week passed in the same way, save that naturally

they required larger supplies, and I had to work early and late to

satisfy them. They had come just at an awkward time, too early

for wasp grubs and too late for the tree-feeding caterpillars, which

usually abound during the latter part of May, or for those partic¬

ularly plump and succulent caterpillars so beloved of all birds, which

roll up leaves of stinging nettles. We struggled on, however, and the

young birds were feathering nicely and their voices could be heard

distinctly from the other end of the aviary. I began to hope that

soon they would have their diet supplemented with cake sop or at

any rate banana, their beaks were beginning to lengthen, they moved

about the nest and sat on the edge of the nest, surely they would

soon leave it. But with the closing days of June the weather grew

worse, heavy showers continually wetted the grass and made

“ sweeping” impossible, a bitter wind blew, driving all flies and gnats

into hiding, and this lasted until the first of July. Only mealworms

were available, and I tried to persuade myself that the babies being

older their digestions must be stronger. Their mother knew better,

and was plainly not satisfied, but there was no help for it.


On the evening of July 1st I noticed that the nestlings were

not hungry and had to be coaxed to gape for food; the next



