LONDON BIRDS 51 



and so brittle that it broke under the weight of the 

 bird. 



The keeper, gathering from this that more tonic food 

 was needed, the next year, when feeding the birds, 

 powdered the fish with pounded shells. The experi- 

 ment proved successful, and late in the season two 

 satisfactory eggs were laid, one of which was hatched 

 about the end of the first week of September, some 

 two or three months behind the usual hatching-time 

 of the species. 



The nestling was devotedly tended by both parents, 

 who fed it regularly from their own crops with half- 

 digested fish, and so closely brooded it that it was 

 seldom possible to see it without disturbing them; 

 until, when little more than half-grown, it was deliber- 

 ately driven by them from the nest, and was found by 

 the keeper at some distance in such a draggled and 

 pitiable condition that as the only chance of saving 

 its life he took it to the engine-house fire and fed it 

 by hand. A gentleman who happened at the moment 

 to be passing through the park was an eye-witness to 

 the act of eviction. It is an everyday story, and in 

 the commonness of such incidents and in their in- 

 humanity their special interest lies. It is a well-known 

 and very general habit of many birds notably of birds 

 of prey which need wide and undisturbed hunting- 

 ground as soon as their young are of an age to face 

 the responsibilities of life, to drive them off to find 

 homes and maintenance on their own account. 



The time had perhaps come at which, according to 



