20 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS 



courage failed her, to the intense disgust of her 

 clamouring brood. At the tenth attempt she plucked 

 up sufficient courage to feed the young birds. 



At a subsequent visit she dropped a caterpillar, and 

 I frightened her away before she could retrieve it. I 

 found it to be alive and about an inch in length. 



On another occasion I saw her ramming something 

 black down the throat of a young hopeful. Frightening 

 her away, I went outside and found the youthful bird 

 making valiant attempts to swallow a whole mulberry. 

 But it was not often that she gave them fruit ; green 

 caterpillars formed quite nine-tenths of what she brought 

 in ; the remainder was composed chiefly of grubs, with 

 an occasional grasshopper or moth. As the young 

 grew older the proportion of insect food given to them 

 diminished until, when they were about twenty-two 

 days old, their diet was made up principally of grain. 



The day on which the third young sparrow was put 

 into the cage was a warm one, so at 2 p.m., when the 

 shade temperature was about 115, I brought the cage 

 into the comparatively cool bungalow, for the sake of 

 the amadavats. The cock sparrow witnessed the re- 

 moval of the cage and did not hesitate to give me a bit 

 of his mind. In a minute or so the hen returned with 

 her beak full of green caterpillars. When she found 

 the cage gone, she, too, expressed her opinion of me 

 and of mankind in general in no uncertain terms. It 

 was the last straw. Earlier in the day I had removed 

 one of the baby sparrows from the cage and placed it 

 in a cigar-ash tray outside the cage. The hen had 

 affected not to notice that anything had happened, and 



