88 WOODLAND CREATURES 



hen opens her beak, exactly as if appealing to the 

 cock to give her more food, and he thrusts his bill 

 down her throat. It seems to me that he is really 

 helping himself to the food she has left; at any 

 rate he does this several times, each time turning 

 to the nestlings and giving them something. He 

 then leaves, and she broods the little things for 

 a few moments. She next pulls a fibre out of 

 the nest, which appears to have got out of place, 

 and flies away with it. At 1.23 the female appears 

 alone, feeds the family, and broods them until 

 her mate returns at 1.38, when he feeds and attends 

 to them, and the two depart together. At 2.15 

 they are back again, but do not stop after feeding 

 the young and cleaning up. Leave the tent at 

 2.20." 



From this time forward the pair invariably 

 foraged together, returning together with their 

 supplies, and behaving, in fact, like a most devoted 

 couple. Except when the hen stayed to brood the 

 young for a while, the cock never moved without 

 her. They each had their own path by which 

 they approached the nest. He invariably flew 

 on to the roof of my tent and thence to a particular 

 twig in front of the nest, but she came from the 

 back, slipping quietly through the branches, and 

 appearing suddenly on the farther side of the nest. 

 Sometimes the pair notified their approach with 

 their mournful call-notes, and at other times came 

 silently, but however quietly they came it was 

 seldom that they took the nestlings by surprise. 

 The young ones nearly always knew when they 



