386 THE THRUSH FAMILY 



has been seen, indeed, to do all or nearly all the work. The cock 

 thrush that was father to the young birds shown in the right bottom 

 corner photograph of Plate xin., p. 318, fed both them and his mate, 

 who was occupied in brooding, till a spell of hot weather came to 

 harden the ground, and keep the worms below, a change that 

 made his arrivals with food far less frequent, despite the growing 

 appetites of the young. "Whenever his absence was at all pro- 

 longed, the hen was visibly anxious, and she developed the habit 

 of flying off to meet him, taking the worms he had collected, and return- 

 ing with them to the nest. Eventually, as the young ones were getting 

 well fledged, their mother brooded them only at night, and devoted 

 her whole time during the day to procuring worms." J This example 

 shows clearly enough that whereas the non-participation of the 

 cock in nest-building and incubation leads to no serious con- 

 sequences, his neglect of the young would certainly result in their 

 being insufficiently fed, for the hen has to give a large part of her 

 time to brooding in order to protect them from heat or rain. 



It is interesting to note that Bailly, writing as long ago as 1853, 

 noted that, like the thrush just referred to, the cock ring-ouzel alone, 

 or almost alone, undertakes the feeding of the young during the 

 first five or six days of their lives, leaving the hen to brood. He 

 states that the food brought, worms or insects, is given by the cock 

 to the hen. and by her to the young, but here again individual 

 practice may be found to vary. 2 



The fairly detailed information we now possess about the life 

 of young birds in the nest is largely due to the rise during recent 

 years of the naturalist-photographer. He was not long in finding 

 out that their eggs, and particularly their nestlings, acted as an 

 irresistible magnet to bring the parents, sooner or later, within range 

 of the camera. He took advantage of the fact and, in doing so, 

 could scarcely help noting much that was new or in process of being 

 forgotten. He has photographed birds in almost every act of their 



1 Country Life, February 19, 1910. 2 Ornithologie de la Savoie, vol. ii. p. 215. 



