54 BRITISH BIRDS. [vol. x. 



this nest hatched in the course of one day) I saw the 

 remains of four young Starhngs, two Greenfinches and a 

 Lark. I put him off as I was going to the hut. He was 

 then eating a young Starhng. When I disturbed him 

 he gave chase to a House-Sparrow, and the Sparrow, 

 although I think the hawk was playing, did not like it, 

 but shrieked in terror as it dived into, round and through 

 the bushes. I was in the hut several hours and he turned 

 up and called the hen at intervals of almost exactly an 

 hour, but she did not leave the nest once. Later on, the 

 wind keeping much in the same quarter, the cock used 

 the tree to dress food for the young, and I often saw 

 pellets lying with the remains : one of these contained 

 parts of an egg of a Greenfinch, which would indicate 

 that he swallowed the egg, inside the Greenfinch, just as 

 he would a gizzard. Often, too, there were fragments 

 of intestine on the tree and the feathers of the victim 

 covered the ground alongside the trunk. After Starlings, 

 Blackbirds, Thrushes, Greenfinches and Chaffinches were 

 mostly in evidence. When the time came for the hen 

 to fetch from him he always awaited her at this feeding 

 tree. She dropped down from the edge of the nest and 

 skimmed the ground to meet him, but came back level 

 with the nest, having acquired sufficient altitude almost 

 on leaving the feeding tree. 



For the first few days after hatching has commenced 

 the cock seems to bring the food to the nest fairly 

 regularly (Fig. 3). Then the hen begins to fetch it from 

 him and after this I do not think she likes him to come to 

 the nest except when she is brooding in very heavy rain. 

 We noticed that sometimes she received the food from 

 the cock quite near the nest when both were on the wing ; 

 at other times she took it from him on a branch, but most 

 often she went out of sight to receive it, and we judged 

 that as a rule the transference took place when both 

 birds were perched on a branch. I have watched the 

 transference of food in the air from a few feet away. 

 The cock remained practically motionless in the air ; 



