BIRDS 



469 



and flew away. . . . She heralded her return every time by a 



twittering call that was answered by her offspring, which she 



fed on an average once every quarter of an hour. . . . She 



did not appear to receive the slightest assistance from her 



mate, although I must say he sang very blithely over our 



heads on several occasions." All bird fathers, however, are 



not so careless as the Skylark, for in this same book we 



find the statement: "A 



closer study of the domestic 



life of birds by means of 



our hiding appliances has 



resulted in the discovery 



that the males of many 



species share family cares 



to a far greater extent than 



I ever supposed. One day 



I erected our rubbish-heap 



close to a chaffinch's nest 



containing a brood of five 



half-grown young ones, and 



took up my station inside. 



The male bird fed the chicks 



four times for the female's 



once, and when he had 



distributed his harvest of 



caterpillars most impartially 



amongst his clamorous sons 



and daughters he attended 



to the sanitary requirements 



of his little establishment " 



(fig. 989). The frontispiece to the work from which the two last 



quotations are taken is a particularly charming picture of a male 



Bearded Tit feeding his young. 



In many vegetarian birds the food of the adult is unsuitable 

 for the young brood, and this is especially the case with some 

 of the finch kind, which largely subsist on hard seeds and the 

 like. There is more than one way of getting over this diffi- 

 culty. The adult House- Sparrow (Passer domesticus, fig. 990), 

 for example, lives chiefly on various plant parts, but feeds its 

 young on worms, grubs, caterpillars, and other small creatures. 



Fig. 989. Cock Chaffinch (Fringilla ccelebs] at Nest 



