28 5



a bright patch of reddish brown above the eye, under the chin,

and on the under tail coverts ; in the female and young the black

colour is replaced by olive green. It seems to me in every way

a very shy and uninteresting bird. I did not discover their note

nor did it appear to have any habits worth recording ; they come

in numbers to feed on a tree which bears a small black berry, and

were it not for that habit my acquaintance with it would have

been most scanty, although the bird is by no means rare.


(To be continued ).



NESTING OF THE CAT-BIRD.


By the Rev. C. D. Farrar.


(Continued from page 228).


About a week after “the late sad event” (see p. 227) I

noticed the female Cat-bird very busy repairing her nest. She

is evidently fond of colour, for she stuck several Blue-bonnet’s

tail feathers in the outside, and altogether made it a very neat

and natty affair. After about a week of more or less desultory

labour she deposited three eggs, rather larger than the first

clutch, from which I infer that it was her first effort. No bird

could have sat in a more exemplary manner; and on the twelfth

day her efforts were rewarded by the appearance of one little

bird to be followed the next morning by another. The

remaining egg was clear ; and I hoped to save it, but the young

birds kicked it out and broke it the day they left the nest.


One of the most difficult things in the world is to get

these birds to build, lay, hatch, and rear, even half way—as I

know by sad and bitter experience, but I felt that if success was

to be mine I would win it.


The difficulty I knew, of course, would be the feeding.

People may tell you a lot of fairy tales about giving birds raw

meat chopped up and mixed with soft food, to give the old ones

plenty of healthy employment; but the said old birds will not

so much as look at it, much less feed with it. Live insect food

of some sort is the only thing they will feed with, and if they

can’t get it the young will be allowed to die incontinent. I felt,

therefore, that I had six weeks of healthy exercise before me ;

and that there would be no need for any summer holiday.


A few days before hatching time you might, one evening,

have seen the Vicar of Micklefield and his youngest son sallying



