78 BRITISH BIRDS [vol. x. 



three-quarters of an inch respectively on the 12th and 

 14th days. The feather-sheaths begin to burst on the 

 Aving-quills shortly afterwards, and this part may be half 

 an inch long by the time the bird is fourteen days old. The 

 eyes have begun to change, and now the iris is greenish- 

 grey. There is a patch between the eye and the bill 

 which now becomes bare and greenish-yellow in colour. 

 By the seventeenth day this is nearly clear of down ; 

 later on it is covered with dark, downy, hair-like fila- 

 ments. The eye, too, has more yellow in the iris, though 

 at what age the iris becomes yellow like that of the old 

 bird I cannot say ; it is still grey in wild birds at six 

 weeks old. 



As the feathers appear the preening increases, also 

 the flea-hunts seem to be carried out with greater intent- 

 ness. When the young are under tMcnty days old, the 

 brown plumage does not show up at all prominently 

 except on the outer edge of the wings and on the tail. 

 After this the progress of the plumage is wonderful. 

 The young leave the nest when a hen is twenty-nine or a 

 cock twenty-eight days old. They have still got a 

 large amount of beautiful white down on them, and this 

 does not go entirely for about another three weeks. The 

 last traces are to be seen on the head and the back. 



They begin to try to pull at a carcass while the hen 

 holds it when they are about seventeen days old. 

 They use the same pull and twist action that the hen 

 does, but of course seldom get anything but the minutest 

 fragments off at that age. They can stand for a short 

 time, but not for long, when they are nineteen days old, 

 and their power of feeding increases almost exactly with 

 their power to stand on their legs. Thus a bird of twenty- 

 one days can certainly get bits off a carcass, and would most 

 likely live if provided with food, while a bird of twenty- 

 three days can feed itself. I have watched a bird of 

 this age demolish almost the whole of a bird deposited 

 by the cock. I was once Avitness of a very quaint 

 episode with a bird of twenty-three to tAAcnty-four 



