170 FIRST APPEARANCES OF BIRDS, INSECTS, ETC. 



4 p.m. The male arrived and the female left. The male 

 was fairly bold till I fired an Autochrome at him, when the 

 noise of plate changing sent him up aloft to consider matters. 

 In five minutes he was back. I gave him 4 seconds on an 

 Autochrome and the result is passable. I induced him to 

 stay still for this period of time by whistling short sharp 

 blasts at him. After that he went to the nest, and I tried 

 4 Paget Colour plates at him with exposures of 1 second, 

 but he moved in two out of four, and the plates have failed 

 to record his colour with the accuracy of the Lumiere plate. 

 He afterwards fed the young by regurgitation. He was fairly 

 leisurely over it, but seemed to have an immense supply of 

 food. I noticed that when he considered any individual 

 chick had had a fair share he refused to give it any more, and 

 drew back each time the chick tried to reach him, until place 

 was given for a fresh one. The green of both birds, but 

 especially that of the female, is so faded that the Brown 

 Woodpecker would be a more accurate name than green. The 

 crest of red, however, seems to retain its colour well. One 

 young one is very advanced and has a very handsome red 

 crest, but the others (I was only able to distinguish three) 

 are more backward. (Two of the large species of Tabanis 

 played havoc with my ankles whilst I was watching the birds 

 and militated against my success, as they made my ankles 

 bleed to such an extent that I could not refrain from movement 

 once or twice.) 



5 p.m. E.H.C. took on and waited till 6, but neither parent 

 came. He noted that the young had grown a great deal in a 

 week and still made a noise like rubbing a file on the leaves 

 of a book. In addition to this noise they made a loud, high- 

 pitched croak. 



4th July. E.H.C. had a try at this bird again, as we were 

 very anxious if possible to secure a good colour photograph, 

 as none of the plates in books that we have seen give the 

 colour accurately, or give a really good idea of the character- 

 istic poses of the bird. E.H.C. got set up at 2 p.m. in a 

 good light, and notes as follows : 



