AND OTHER BIRDS 191 



famished and eager family with a long green 

 caterpillar, some crushed daddy-long-legs, and 

 quite a bill full of other dainties. The necks of 

 the brood were elongated to the utmost, and 

 shivering with eagerness, their throats were 

 open like yellow crocus blooms in sun, when some 

 slight stir of my coat caught the parent's eye. 

 Instantly he signalled, "Down, Jenkins" 

 several species, perhaps all, can sing and whistle 

 with bills apparently crammed with food and 

 the long necks shrunk and the blossoming throats 

 faded, and thus, deathly still, though famishing, 

 crouched the brood until again called to life. 

 Unless fully considered, the marvel of this 

 obedience can hardly be appreciated, for the 

 appetites of little birds cannot be gauged by 

 those of the young of man, or of the higher 

 animals. Babies do not require food for many 

 hours after birth and then at long intervals ; but 

 nestlings of some breeds feed within a very few 

 minutes of hatching, and this difference may 

 supply us with some criterion as to the relative 

 cravings of each. The chick must grow rapidly, 

 to pass swiftly through the most dangerous 

 period of life ; it must have nourishment almost 

 at once, and ever afterwards at brief intervals, 

 yet, in the case instanced, when a child would 

 have yelled unceasingly and perfectly regardless 

 of command, the little Tits, though starving with 

 hunger, obeyed with instant promptitude. 



To this nest, although fully built and con- 

 taining chicks, from time to time feathers were 

 added; and it was here, that whilst watching 

 a Bell-bird collecting nest materials, and 

 whilst I was for a few minutes neglectful of 

 the Tits, that again, for the second time, I heard 



