CHAPTER IV. 



BIRDS (continued). 



DURING heavy showers of rain the females of many 

 species hasten back with what food they have col- 

 lected and, giving it to their young ones, sit down 

 upon the nest, and spreading out their wings, allow 

 the falling water to trickle harmlessly away outside 

 the structure. This is often a good opportunity 

 for obtaining a photographic study of them, 

 although I have known my brother fail to make 

 a picture through a lack of sufficient light, and 

 the fact that the little crowd of protected fledglings 

 were constantly heaving their mother's form or 

 popping their inquisitive beaks from beneath her 

 breast. 



Last spring I was desirous of studying some of 

 the ground-builders, and having photographs taken 

 of them at close quarters in the act of feeding 

 their young, so I conceived the notion of making 

 the artificial rubbish-heap described in Chapter I. 

 for purposes of hiding in. As soon as we had 

 completed it we fixed it up at five o'clock one 

 Saturday morning some eight or ten yards away 

 from a skylark's nest, in the middle of a bare 



